The Adventures of the Primeval Kids
by coldgravy
Summary: A spinoff of embrace-the-deception's "Primeval Preschool", this follows the adventures of the more mature Primeval gang. Think of it as like Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids meets Rugrats: All Grown Up. Also I have changed the title  1/21/2012 .
1. Introduction

This fanfiction obviously starts with a disclaimer, and I know a lot of people just skip it, but in case there is somebody who has a good relationship with someone called common sense, I _**do not**_ own Primeval, its characters, story, and all that, the stuff you usually see, but my main source of motivation is from reading "Primeval Preschool", an adorable story written by a very nice person and good writer, embrace-the-deception. Unfortunately, Preschool was declared finished, which was a drag. Talking with embrace-the-deception, I suggested doing a spinoff to sort of "continue the legacy", and Embrace really liked that and said she would like to see it, so that gave me a shot of confidence. Well here you go. Primeval Preschool takes a step up. Welcome to 4th Grade.

The group of preteens, who called themselves "The Primeval Gang", grew up together in preschool and had happy memories of their youth, the fun they had, the trouble they caused, and the best teacher they had ever had, Mr. Lester. Several years later, the kids are in 4th Grade, and we find them playing softball at the park.

"STRIKE 3! YOU'RE OUT CONNOR!", one of the boys, Becker, shouted. Connor Temple was not exactly the best batter within the group, nor pitcher. He enjoyed playing sports with his friends and classmates, but he was more of a computer and electronics kid. Whenever he and his friends played _Aliens: Space Marines_, Connor always won each match. He was also a big fan of science fiction, and at one point he even submitted a paper for science class stating his preposterous theory on how life evolved on Earth, which was that aliens landed on the newly-formed Earth and introduced life to Earth.

It was the worst grade he had ever received in science, so bad; he never even knew it existed until he got his paper back.

On the other hand, his closest friend, Abby, a sweet white-blonde-haired girl with a passion for reptiles, was superior in sports. She was very active, doing continuous workouts and practicing martial arts. Becker was constantly trying to prove himself as being brave or strong, but for whatever reason, he just went by his last name, as opposed to the other children. Stephen was another boy in the Primeval gang, who was a great guy to have around; really athletic and smart, but every once in a while, he was prone to getting easily ticked-off and worked-up, which was very common during the kids' preschool years. Helen was another girl who could be very determined and persistent when she believed something to be right, and if someone else said otherwise, she'd go to great effort to prove them wrong or make them look bad. Sarah, who was frightened easily (due to numerous stressful, frightening incidents from preschool), was not really "sporty", and spent her time mainly chatting with her friends Nick and Jenny, having long, interesting, pleasant conversations about numerous topics, from dinosaurs to school to Egypt. Danny was a comedian, doing lots of humorous juvenile acts that often got him into more trouble than out of it.

The kids had a good time growing up in London; playing sports on the weekends or after school, going to the theater, or just hanging around. But like all kids their age, they faced a handful of tough situations or problems. Luckily, working together, they manage to solve lots of issues.


	2. Bullies

The kids were racing back to Stephen's house to catch their favorite show, _Aliens: Space Marines_ on TV. _Aliens: Space Marines _was an exciting program, featuring a team of high-tech futuristic space marines that traveled across the galaxy battling aliens, and the show was on every Friday afternoon at 3:00. Hurrying back to Stephen's, the gang suddenly ran into a big problem contained in a little body: Abby's younger brother, Jack. Jack was four years younger than his sister, but was a bit of a pain.

"A-yee!", the kindergartener shouted to his sister; with "A-yee" being his pronunciation of "Abby". Abby turned around to face her brother. "Jack, what are you doing here? Does Mummy know you're here?"

"Mu-Mummy told me to go out an' pway, and I wanted to pway with you", the young boy replied.

"Well Jack, Sissy's kinda busy right now, but I'll play with you later", she promised. Immature Danny couldn't resist a snicker, but the second Abby turned around and gave him "the look", he immediately shut his mouth. Abby turned back to her little brother. "Well I can't play with you right now, but maybe you could go to the park and find some other kids to play with. Just let Mum know, okay?"

The second Abby mentioned playing with other kids, Jack started weeping, then burst into a shower of tears. Before Abby could stop him and see what was wrong, he ran off and disappeared. "Well nice one Abby. You made us late for

_Aliens: Space Marines _and you made that little pest cry", Danny remarked. "Danny, I swear to Gorman", she growled under her breath, trying to refrain from beating the devil out of him. "Well, you guys go catch the show."

"Well where are you going?", asked Helen.

"To find my little brother."

Like an animal, Abby instintively went to the park due to the fact that whenever she and Jack played together, they'd always go to the park. While searching for her little brother, she heard voices, followed by a scream. Definitely Jack. Following the sound of the shouting, she saw Jack running from two bigger kids chasing him. Jack was scared to death, but he saw his sister and rushed over to her. Jack hid behind Abby's legs, and she went up to confront the bullies.

"Now why where you two picking on my little brother?", she asked angrily.

"Because he was just sitting on top of the slide and wouldn't go down."

"_So?_ Is that a valid reason to chase down and try to hit a smaller, younger child?", she exclaimed with disbelief.

"Well yeah. He's not tough enough to do anything about it."

"But is that a good reason to try to hit him?"

"Well he can't do anything about it, and he's just sitting up there."

"Well you're not getting my little brother without going through me first."

"Yeah?", one of the bigger kids scoffed, "You and who's army?"

"Ours."

The two bullies turned to see Danny, Helen and the rest of the Primeval Gang behind them.

"Go ahead, you were saying...?", Danny remarked.

"U-U-H-H-H-M-M..." The two bullies were too scared to speak, and then turned and ran.

"Hey Danny?", Abby asked.

"Yeah?"

"I'm sorry I got so angry with you earlier."

"No, you don't have to apologize. I do. I'm sorry I teased you for caring about your brother. I remembered it being the same with my brother. And Jack, if you want, you can come with us and catch the rest of _Space Marines _with us."

"SPWASE MAREENS!", Jack cheered.

The kids couldn't help but smile.


	3. The Race Part 1

"Alright class, it's time for P.E", their teacher, Mr. Leek, announced. Putting down their history books, the children lined up to go to the gym. Once they reached the gym, the gym teacher, Mr. Quire, let them in. When everyone was in, he began roll call, which was one of the kid's favorite parts of P.E class. Mr. Quire was the greatest teacher ever, right up there with their old preschool teacher. He did not discriminate people based on their weight or athletic capabilities; in fact he gave them extra help and support.

The reason why it the kids loved the roll call was because it was a friendly class-competition to see who could come up with the funniest or coolest answer instead of just bleakly saying "here". Another reason they liked Mr. Quire is because he not only allowed the game, but some of the kids' answers made him chuckle.

"Okay kids, nice to have you here. Now let's begin roll call. Abby M?"

"The one and only!". Some of the kids giggled.

"H. Becker?". The teacher was also aware and respected the fact that Becker was sensitive to his first name.

"Locked n' loaded!", the boy energetically replied.

"Danny Q?"

"If I wasn't here I wouldn't be here." The whole class, including the teacher, burst out laughing.

"You never fail to amuse us Danny", Mr. Quire remarked.

"Thank you, sir", Danny smiled.

"Nick C?"

"Breaking news: 9-year-old boy named Nick Cutter discovered to be alive in gym class!", he jokingly replied in the style of a news story.

"Connor T?"

"**SCUTOSAURUS!**", he blurted out, leaping up.

"_What_?", Mr. Quire asked in both disbelief and confusion.

"Here...", Connor mumbled, sinking back down in embarrassment.

After the last names were called (with one answer being "chicken pot-pie!"), the teacher lead the children outside to the playground for their activity. "Okay class, you have three activities to chose from: you can play kickball out here, basketball inside, or run track. I'll be playing kickball with y'all out here."

"Mr. Quire?", Sarah asked, "Can I sit out?"

"Sure thing, Sarah. And don't feel bad about anything. If you want to sit out or something, go right ahead."

"Thanks Mr. Quire", the girl smiled.

Mr. Quire smiled as he watched the class run off to their selected activities. This class was one of the best- probably _the _best- that he taught. They were nice, eager, had plenty of laughs, adored him, took care of the equipment, and were just the greatest bunch of 4th graders he taught.

"Hey Danny!", Helen shouted, "Wanna race?"

"Sure Helen, but I'm gonna win", he boasted.

"Well you want to put that theory to the test?"

"Theory? Not likely. But sure. I'll race ya."

Borrowing a small amount of spray paint from Mr. Quire, Jenny sprayed a perfectly straight starting line, and the two racers inched up to the line.

"On your mark...!", Nick announced.

"Get set...", Sarah continued.

"GO!", Stephen yelled. Helen and Danny took off running, with Danny going at a basic jogging pace, while Helen running as fast as her legs could carry her. 13 yards later, Helen had run out of energy and breath, and once she started slowly walking in exhaustion, that's when Danny accelerated. Sprinting past the wheezing Helen, Danny bolted ahead and crossed the finish line.

"DANNY WINS!", Becker shouted. The Primeval Gang gave Danny hi-fives and patted him on the back, and Danny went over to Helen and kindly patted her on the shoulder. "You did good Helen, just remember that." "Thanks Danny", Helen smiled, feeling better. "Want some water?", he asked, taking a fresh, untouched water bottle that Connor had given him before class. "Sure, thank you." Grabbing the water bottle, 16.7 fluid ounces in the water bottle disappeared down Helen's throat in half a second." "Thanks again, Danny. I may be a fast drinker, but you are the fastest kid in the class!"

"Fastest _runner_, maybe." The gang turned around to see one of the other kids in their class, Rudy, standing behind them. "So Danny Boy here is the fastest runner in school, but _nobody_ here could beat me in a bicycle race!", he bragged.

"Oh you wanna bet?", Danny asked.

"Matter o' fact yes. How much?"

"A dollar".

"Oooohhh...", the rest of the gang commented. A dollar was worth a lot of money in school, because at school, they served ice-cream bars, and you could get one for 10 cents. Another reason the kids liked having Danny around is because once a week, Danny would bring a dollar to school, and buy 9 ice-cream bars, one for each of his friends plus himself, and then give the remaining 10 cents to Abby so she could go to her little brother, who had lunch at the same time as her, and take him to the ice-cream stand and buy him a small ice-cream cup, which was another reason he loved his big sister and looked up to the Primeval kids.

"Sure. And both 'cause I know I'm gonna win and to be nice to you, I'll give you _two _dollars."

"It's a deal then?"

"Deal. When we leave to go back to class, I'll ask Coach and Mr. Leek. This Friday, same time. Race one lap around the park's bicycle trail."

Rudy ran off to go play kickball, but Danny just stood there. "Dan, you okay?", Becker asked.

"Hey guys, can I tell you the truth about something without you making' fun of me?", Danny asked.

"We're your friends. We're not going to tease you", said Abby.

"Thanks Abby. Guys, I don't know how to ride a bike."

"Well why not?"

"'Cuz my dad has never taught me. He always says he will, but he's always either at work or busy doing other stuff. Plus, I'm too scared of falling off."

"Well we can teach you", Abby suggested. "I've been teaching Jack how to ride his bike with training wheels for about two weeks now."

"Can we teach me without training wheels? I don't want to look like a baby in front of Rudy."

"Sure. You can use my bike. Everyone come by my house this afternoon."

"Okay kids, time to come in! Your lunch period is in 10 minutes", Mr. Quire announced. The kids regrouped with him and followed him back into Mr. Leek's classroom. The gang went to go get their lunch money and lunchboxes, but Mr. Leek stopped Danny.

"Am I in trouble?", he asked.

"Not at all", Mr. Leek reassured him. "I just heard that you and Rudy Davis want to have a race at 10:30 at the park, and that Rudy would pay you two dollars if you won."

"Is that O.K, Mr. Leek?", Danny asked.

"Will you give me 40 cents so I can buy ice-cream for me and my kids?"

"Yes sir."

"Then the race is on", Mr. Leek answered.


	4. The Race Part 2

Danny, Abby, Connor and Sarah, who had home lunches, bought their ice-cream and sat down. "I'll be right back", Abby said. While Abby got up to find her little brother and buy him ice-cream, Danny, Sarah and Connor were discussing the race when Helen ran up to them, obviously exited about something.

"What's goin' on, Helen?", Danny asked.

"You'll never believe it!", Helen announced to her friends, "My friend from across my street, Jamie, said she got a part-time job at Mr. Cooper's Chocolate Shoppe, where you're allowed to have free chocolate if you work there, and asked me if I wanted to work with her! So that means I'll have chocolate in my belly and money in my pocket!"

"Sweet!"

"Nice!"

"Just not too much."

"What do you mean, Danny?"

"Well just think about that for a second. Not only does too much chocolate do stuff to your teeth, but it'll turn you into a fatty. My next-door neighbor is so fat, basically it takes him 30 minutes just to get through his front door!"

Connor started laughing. "For real?"

"Yep. True story. I was playing catch outside with my mom, and he was going to get the paper or something, and we watched as he got stuck in the door frame and said some dirty words that my mom told me not to repeat aloud."

"I'm not going to get _that_ fat!", Helen replied in shock. "Matter of fact, I won't even get fat at all! I'll have like one chocolate bar a week, and bring some back for you guys!"

"Actually Danny, I don't think this is such a bad idea after all", Connor suggested.

"Well remember that you guys are already getting ice-cream every week. I'm not saying I'm offended or 'nuthin; I'm just saying that I'm not sure that this will turn out positive."

"Well my first shift starts at 12:30. Before I came here, I asked Mr. Leek, and said it was okay as long as I was back by 1:00 for English."

At this point, everyone had sat down and heard the news, and Abby returned to the table, with Jack following her. "Is it okay if Jack sits with us? He's lonely."

"Sure!"

Jack took a seat next to his big sister, and the conversation shifted back to Danny's bike race. "So Abby, if today's Tuesday, and the race is Friday, can you teach me to ride a bike by then?"

"Dan-yee wride bicycle?", Jack asked.

"Yes buddy", Abby replied to her little brother, "Danny's got a big race on Friday, and if he wins, you can get three ice-creams next week instead of one!"

Jack was silent for a moment, then cheered, "Go Dan-yee!"

At 12:15, lunch ended. Jack gave his sister a hug and went back to his class, while the Primeval kids got back in line to return to Mr. Leek's. While the kids were lining up, Helen's friend, Jamie, came up to her.

"You ready to go?"

"Sure am! Guys, this is Jamie."

"Hey Jamie!"

"How's the job?"

"Pleasured to meet you!"

"Well we'd love to chat, but we've gotta go. Catch up with you guys later!", Helen announced.

"Bye Helen! Good luck!", the kids replied.

"Hey Mr. Cooper!", said Jamie, "This is my friend Helen. Helen, this is Mr. Cooper."

"Nice to meet you, Helen", the man welcomed, shaking her hand. "You like chocolate?"

"Sure do, sir!", Helen eagerly replied.

"Well I'm not sure if your friend told ya, but you can have all the chocolate you can stomach."

"Sweet...", Helen answered.

"Now girls, I gotta run some errands. Jamie, help Helen out when you can, this is her first day."

"Yes sir."

Mr. Cooper grabbed his coat and walked out of the shoppe. "You want a piece of chocolate?", Jamie asked, offering a chocolate bar to her friend.

"Sure. Thanks again Jamie!"

"No problem", Jamie replied.

Two kids, 11 or so years old walked in. "May I help you?", Helen warmly asked. "Sure", one of the kids asked. Can I get a medium-sized bag of chocolate-covered pretzels?"

"Coming right up". Helen grabbed a bag and filled it with pretzels. "Here you go. That'll be 1.25, please." The kid gave Helen the money. "How about you?", she asked his friend.

"Nothing for me. I don't want to end up like that fat guy that lives next to the Quinn family; Mr. Rivers. I heard he's so fat, when he steps onto his scale, it says 'DOES NOT COMPUTE', and that he gained like 25 pounds in a week."

"Wow, O.K", Helen shrugged.

The two boys walked out of the store, and Helen and Jamie continued nibbling on their chocolate.

"Dang. I can't even imagine how much chocolate you'd have to eat to get that fat."

"I know, right?"

As Helen and Jamie resumed eating, Helen failed to notice her zipper go down half an inch on its own...

A couple hours later, Danny, Abby, and the rest of the Primeval kids were at Abby's house. "Okay, first, always have your helmet on", Abby instructed. Putting on the helmet, Danny climbed onto the bicycle.

"Uhhh, how do I turn it on?", Danny asked.

"You don't 'turn it on'", Abby laughed, "First you have one foot on the ground, and there's something called a kickstand. Use your foot to lift it up."

Feeling around for the kickstand, Danny lifted it up with his foot. "Good. Now put your feet on the pedals, and pedal forwards, but try to stay balanced. Don't lean too far to the left or right." Putting both feet on the pedals, Danny started pedaling forwards, and the bike started moving. "I'M DOING IT!", he shouted in excitement. "Way to go, Danny!", the gang cheered. Danny was pedaling fast, a little too fast, Abby noticed. "Danny, slow down! You're going too fast!", she yelled.

"What?", he asked, turning around. He turned back and screamed as the bike crashed into a trashcan on the curb, sending him flying into a neighbor's tree. The gang rushed over to help him, and he got out of the tree, covered in leaves and twigs in his hair.

"Hey, Danny, for a second there, I thought you were like that famous book", Connor remarked.

"Which one?"

"_Gone with the Wind_"

Everyone laughed hard, Danny included.


	5. The Race Part 3

After a day and a half of practice, Danny had finally learned how to balance on the bike and ride it without going too fast or colliding with a garbage can. However, he still wasn't sure if he could go fast enough to beat Rudy, and the race was less than two days away. Borrowing Stephen's bike, each of the Primeval kids raced against Danny, trying to test his speed.

"Sorry I'm late", Helen called to Abby. "What'd I miss?"

"Well we're racing against Danny to help him prepare for the race on Friday. Go run home and get your helmet!". While she was speaking with Helen, Abby couldn't refrain from glancing at Helen's belly, which was two-thirds the size of a basketball. What the girl had eaten and how much was the question. Abby had enough sense not to comment in fear of hurting her friend's feelings.

"I'll be right back!", Helen shouted, and ran back to her house.

"Uh, Connor?", Abby asked.

"What's up?", he replied.

"Is it just me, or is Helen looking a bit 'larger' than usual?"

Danny, who had just beat Nick, rode up to the pair and joined in. "A _lot _larger", he added. "I was trying to warn her, wasn't I?"

"For once Danny, you're right. How do you think we should tell her without hurting her feelings, or should we just keep quiet?"

Danny thought about it for a second, then answered. "Well, I don't think there's any way to _tell _her, so we just waits until she finds out herself, but be available to comfort her, help her or make her feel better."

"You're a nice guy, Danny", Abby commented.

"Well I care about my friends. Now who's next? Becker?"

"Sure, but I'm as fast as lightning on a bike."

"Lightning in a bottle", Danny joked. His friends laughed.

8 hours after Danny's practice, the sun had set and all the kids went home, had dinner, finished homework (or in Connor's case, slack off and play _Aliens: Space Marines_), and eventually went to bed. Lying on her bed in the dark, Helen was wide awake, as she had a busy day, and was just plopped on her back, listening to her stomach rumble. She had a stomachache, but wasn't sure if it was either she was hungry, had something that upset her stomach, or she was just digesting her dinner. Either way, it didn't feel too good, and to try to calm her aching tummy, she put her hand down- but was horrified to feel not the flat, skinny gut that she originally had, but a plump, round, smooth potbelly.

"OH MY GOD!", she screamed in horror in disbelief. Helen could do nothing but think in shock and regret of Danny's warnings as well as the amount of chocolate she had stomached over the past two days.

The next morning, Helen was on the walk in front of her house, in tears, with Abby sitting next to her, patting her on the shoulder.

"Why couldn't you guys tell me that I was getting... F... A... T...!", Helen asked, before bursting into tears.

"Well we tried to tell you, but you wouldn't listen to us. And when you... you know, packed some extra pounds, we didn't want to tell you because we didn't want to hurt your feelings."

"I know, but now I'm as fat as an elephant!", Helen cried, poking her belly once.

"_No_, you're not. You're still a beautiful girl, and we're still your friends", Abby reassured her. "Coach can help-"

"No, you don't get it!", Helen sobbed, "I can't and won't go to school 'cause everyone other than you guys will make fun of me. And it would be too embarrassing to do it, because I always watched Coach Quire help the fat kids, and I never though I'd be in that position. But now look at me!"

"Well for one, you're special, whether you're a boy or girl or whether you're tubby or skinny, you're a kind person, Helen. And second, Coach won't discriminate. He'll help you out and give you support."

"Still...", Helen stuttered.

"Tell you what: while everyone else helps Danny, I'll help you lose weight."

Helen smiled and wiped the tears off. "You're the best friend ever!", she warmly thanked, hugging Abby.

"Where's Abby?", Danny asked. "She was supposed to be here nine minutes ago."

Connor came running up to Danny. "Danny?"

"Did you find her?"

"Yeah, but she ain't coming."

"What?", he openly questioned. "But the race is tomorrow!"

"I know, but she's helping Helen out."

"Oh, alright", he replied, instantly understanding why. "Tell you what, Connor, I really want to thank you for helping me out."

"Sure thing, pal. You're welcome."

"I'm going to keep practicing on my own. You go find the rest of the gang. I think they're going to go watch _Aliens: Space Marines_ in the next hour or so."

"You sure?"

"Positive. I don't want to hold you up. After the amount of time you've spent helping me, you should go enjoy yourself."

"Okay", Connor replied. "Catch up with ya later!"

_ "They're not the Galactic Army! They're not the National Navy! They are..._

_ THE SPACE MARINES!"_, the announcer of the kids' favorite show opened. The gang (minus Danny, Abby and Helen) replied with cheers and shouts.

_"As you'll recall last time we left the U.S.S Potato, our three bold heroes, Ringo, his second-in-commad Ritter, and their android assistant, Rianna, experienced an onboard fire and were launched out of the ship in escape pods. Rianna was badly damaged, and we rejoin our heroes at a nearby android hospital on BP-416..."_

Rianna breathed a long, deep, depressed sigh. "Something wrong, Rianna?", Ringo asked. "Well Chief, I wasn't feeling too good", she sighed. "Of course you would not. Your left arm is missing."

Rianna laughed. "I mean that I feel worthless. You and Ritter are always saving the day, and I feel like nothin' but a worthless robot."

"Nonsense, Rianna... you are special. Whether you're a human or android, whether you're fat or thin, tall or short, it does not matter. Everyone is special, including you."

"Well that's nice of you to say, but if I'm so great, then what am I good for?"

"You may not know it now, but you will eventually find... out..."

Awhile later, the Space Marines had repaired Rianna's arm and left BP-416. While they were cruising through the cosmos, another ship, shaped like a sniping rifle, appeared behind them.

"Uh-oh Chief!", Rianna wailed. "There's another ship behind us!"

"By Golly!", Ringo shouted, "It can only be evil space... n00bs..."

The hostile spacecraft starting doing 360 rotations and firing laser bolts at the Space Marines.

_"Will our heroes survive their new, dangerous threat? If so, how? Tune in tomorrow for another thrilling episode of... ALIENS: SPACE MARINES!"_


	6. The Race Part 4

Friday had rolled around, and the entire Primeval Gang, plus Mr. Leek and Coach Quire had gathered at the park. It wasn't a surprise that Rudy had arrived, and 3 minutes later, Danny showed up. Noticing that Rudy wasn't wearing a safety helmet, Danny spoke up.

"Why aren't you wearing a helmet?", he asked.

"_Pros _like me don't need helmets. They're for babies and they just slow you down", Rudy snidely remarked.

"Okay, on your mark... get set... GO!", Stephen yelled. The two racers took off, with Rudy pedaling as fast as he could and Danny going at a steady pace. Rudy managed to pass Danny pretty quickly, but Danny was not a quitter. Unlike Rudy, who's motivation was to brag and be the best at everything, Danny cared about his friends. He was not an "I-told-you-so" kid; or at least, not to his friends. He was thinking about how nice it would be for him and the Primeval kids to have 3 dollar's worth of ice-cream, and he was also thinking about Helen, and how upset he heard she was.

Meanwhile, Rudy was trying to show off to the people spectating, and started to pop a wheelie while looking at the crowd. Unfortunately, he suffered a blow worse than Danny crashing into a garbage can or Helen's weight gain; delivered to his forehead by a thick arm of an oak tree alongside the trail. The boy fell off of his bicycle, which crashed into a bush. Rudy was seriously damaged, and couldn't help but cry while putting pressure on his forehead to try to stop the pain.

Danny was still going, and suddenly spotted the finish line from the top of the hill he was on, but down on the trail, he spotted someone lying on the ground. As hard as he wanted to win the race, he knew he couldn't just leave an injured person, so he rode down to help whoever was hurt.

The Primeval kids were at the finish line, eagerly awaiting their friend to cross, but were surprised to see him on foot, assisting his badly injured opponent. "Why'd you help him?", Becker asked, "He's your opponent!"

"I don't care whether someone is an friend or a competitor, if somebody is seriously hurt; I'm stopping to help", Danny replied.

"Well Danny", Rudy spoke out, "I'm sorry. You were right, and it was real cool of you to stop. And you won fair-and-square, so here." Rudy pulled 2 dollars out of his back pocket and handed them to Danny. "Well, you wanna come with us to get some ice-cream?", Danny offered. "Sure!", Rudy smiled. The kids started to walk out of the park, but ran into Abby and Helen on their way out.

"So who won?", Abby asked.

"Danny won, but he stopped to help me", Rudy explained.

"Well anyways, we're going to grab some ice-cream. Oh, and by the way, Helen, how's the exercising?"

"We're doing great!", Helen confidently reported, lifting up the lower half of her shirt. "See? My belly's almost back to its original size!"

"Great work", Danny praised, "You want some ice-cream?"

"For once, no", Helen laughed.

The other kids laughed with her. It had been one heck of a week for all of them, but they had something good to look forward to.


	7. Xenomorphobia Part 1

The Primeval kids were walking down the sidewalk together to the movie theater. The gang was easily recognized by others, not only because they repeatedly went to movies or the gym, but because each kid had a peculiar "walk". Connor's, for example, was one of the most comical. He would be walking forwards, but leaning forwards at the same time. With every step, he'd slightly bounce his head up and down and left and right, while keeping his hands in his pockets.

The kids were going to the theater to catch the movie _Xenomorphobia_, a scary space-slasher about a highly-aggressive extraterrestrial creature that stalks and murders the crew aboard the space-station Omega 3-7. Jenny and Sarah were not too pleased with this being picked as their film, but after Connor telling her stuff about a possible association with extraterrestrials and ancient civilizations like Egypt, she protested, saying that _Xenomorphobia_'s sci-fi story had absolutely no relationship with Ancient Egypt. So Sarah and Connor made a bet that if Sarah came and she was right, he'd pay her 50 cents, and if she came and she was wrong (which we all know couldn't happen), she'd owe Connor a quarter. The bet was enough to tempt "Scared" Sarah (as the Primeval kids sometimes called her; Sarah being O.K with it) into coming to the movies.

Jenny, though, was not too comfortable with the movie, but something that she didn't admit, but all the other kids could tell, was that she had a crush on Nick, and always sat next to him every time the kids went to the movies, regardless of whether it was scary or not. She really liked Nick, and she hoped he liked her as much as she loved him. He was a nice kid, treating the Primeval kids with courtesy and respect, and his only flaw was occasionally referring to Jenny as "Claudia" but instantly apologizing and correcting himself, due to an event earlier in his life where he'd known a girl named Claudia Brown who looked a lot like Jenny, but had moved away, leaving him really lonely and sad when he started preschool. He met Jenny, though, and made friends with her really quickly.

The children bought their tickets and went into the lobby. "You want some popcorn, Jenny?", Nick asked. "Can we just share a small together?", she asked. At that moment, she heard and felt her stomach growl. "Make that a medium", she laughed. "Sure", Nick said. "Anything for you", he smiled. Jenny blushed.

The kids walked into the dark movie theater. The kids sat within close proximity to eachother, but they each had their different "region preferences" of the theater; Helen, Abby, Connor and Danny, being both adrenaline-junkies and thrill-seekers, sat within the front five rows, losing both their hearing and the feeling in their butts from sitting 10 feet away from a gargantuan movie screen with blasting audio and sound. Nick, Jenny, Stephen, Becker and Sarah were more or less your average moviegoers, and didn't sit in the far back but not right up against the screen.

The lights in the theater dimmed into blackness, and after a five-minute bathroom break/commercial break, the exciting space-slasher that the gang had been waiting five weeks to see, _Xenomorphobia_, started.

The film started out slow, in the future, where a team of astronauts mining for resources by Omega 3-7 discovered a mysterious rock and brought it aboard the station for analysis. Opening it, they found a spider-like creature, and upon opening it up, the creature woke up and drove its stinger into one of the scientists. They kill the creature, but the stung crewman retreats into the darker areas of the ship and mutates into a revolting wasp-like alien, the Megopteran, that silently and gruesomely kills off the crew one-by-one, until only six people remain. Jenny found out that the movie was not as terrifying as she predicted, and was watching the movie with undivided interest. However, Nick on the other hand, found it rather scarier than he thought, and spent the majority of the hour-and-a-half movie with his hands over his eyes.

An hour later, the film ended, and the credits rolled. The lights came back on and the kids got up. "Man, I can't feel my butt!", Abby announced, getting up and stretching. "Can you, Connor?"

"Up 'til now I didn't realize I had one!"

After Abby, Helen, Danny and Connor discussed the sensation about not being able to feel your own butt, the kids who had bought popcorn, candy and fountain drinks threw their trash away.

"Man, that was _good _popcorn!", Helen commented, patting her stomach.

"Not nearly as good as the movie", Jenny replied. "Remember the part where the guy morphed into the alien?"

Helen answered by mimicking the transformation of the crewman into a hideous, terrifying Megopteran. Jenny and Helen both laughed.

The kids threw their trash away and walked out, but Jenny noticed Nick, who was twitchy and had the look on his face that was similar to someone suffering from severe insomnia.

"You okay, Nicky?", Jenny asked in concerned, "You're kinda twitchy."

"Oh, uh, it's just the fruit punch. Sugar rush or something."

"As long as you're okay. Come on, we've gotta go home before it gets dark and our parents worry 'bout us."

"Let's go home now. Please", Nick suddenly insisted.

Later that night, Nick was thrashing around violently in his sleep. He was having very bad dreams...

Nick found himself in the deserted operation rooms aboard the space station Omega 3-7, where the power had been cut and the hallway was lit by red lights powered by the backup power source. "Jenny?", he called out. "Helen? Danny? Stephen? Connor?". Suddenly he heard footsteps. "Who's there?", he asked nervously, scared out of his mind by what was going on. Suddenly Jenny entered the room. "Jenny! Thank Gorman you got here!"

"Sure Nick, I've been looking all over for you, too!" Suddenly he heard another growling noise. "Want me to get you some food?", Nick asked.

What Nick didn't realize that the growling wasn't coming from Jenny's stomach, but coming from inside of her. Suddenly she jolted as if she had suddenly been zapped by something, and then started shaking and screaming. Nick screamed in fear as he watched his crush and best friend mutate and morph into the most hideous, horrifying creature ever imagined. The giant insect stood up, and looked into Nick's eyes with its own black, red and yellow eyes. It slowly walked towards the screaming Nick, who was so terrified he had wet his pants, but at this point it honestly didn't matter. "Jenny! Please! Don't eat me! NOOO!", Nick screamed.

The blonde boy suddenly woke up in a puddle of sweat, breathing heavily and coming to terms with the nightmare he just experienced. Nick finally started crying.

The next day, Nick was at the bus stop, waiting nervously to go to school. Nick usually was the last kid to reach the bus stop, 3 minutes before the bus, but now he was 15 minutes ahead of the rest of the gang. He was surrounded by darkness, as the sun had not yet risen. His only source of light was the light post he was under. Suddenly, he looked to his left, and spotted something that made him perk up.

A moving shadow that couldn't be identified in the darkness was approaching him.

Nick rubbed his eyes and looked back. Whoever- or whatever- was approaching him had vanished. Nick breathed a sigh of relief. He turned right, and started to panic again.

Another mysterious figure moving towards him. Trying to convince himself that it was just an effect of little sleep, he cleared his eyes again, but the shadowed entity was still there.

Nick started hyperventilating, and closed his eyes in fear.

The figure finally came into the light, but it was just Stephen. "Nick? What are you doing at the bus stop so early?"

"Please don't come near me", he pleaded, lightly crying.

"Why? Did I do something wrong or something? What's the matter?"

"It's not you, Steve. Please, please don't come near me."

An hour later, the Primeval kids were at school. "Alright class, please take your seats", Mr. Leek asked. The children took their seats and Mr. Leek gave them their first assignment. "Okay, open up your Science books to..."

"NICK!", Mr. Leek shouted an hour later, shaking the seemingly-unconscious Nick, who had fallen asleep. Upon being woken up, Nick gasped in surprise. "Yes sir?", he asked. "Please pay attention", Mr. Leek asked. "Actually, I noticed you've been pretty tired. Do you think you'd need to visit the counselor?"

"Is that bad?", Nick asked in concern.

"No", Mr. Leek explained.

"Maybe... I don't know, sir."

"Well maybe after lunch then?"

"Yes sir."

"Alright class, let's line up to go to lunch!", Mr. Leek announced.

The class lined up and left the room, walked down the hallway, and entered the cafeteria, home of the Primeval kids' favorite subject: lunch.

"Man, thank Gorman it's Pizza Tuesday!", Abby commented.

"I know", Jenny added, "I forgot to have breakfast this morning. I'm so hungry, I could eat a horse!"

"I'll just have a pony", Sarah asked the lunch lady once Abby and Jenny had gotten their food.


	8. Xenomorphobia Part 2

Once the lunch lady jokingly informed Sarah that they were out of ponies, the kids sat down. "Hi Nick", Jenny affectionately greeted Nick, who still looked paranoid (ee [nervous/paranoid face]). She heard her belly growl again. "Pardon me, I'm _very_ hungry. I forgot breakfast", she explained with a smile.

The second she said that and Nick heard it, Nick ran out of the lunchroom screaming in fear. Every teacher, every student, every OC who has made a cameo appearance, and the Primeval kids stopped what they were doing or eating and looked.

Jenny just sat there, speechless. "They were out of ponies", Sarah grumbled, seating herself next to where Nick had vacated the area. "What was all that about?", Sarah asked openly.

"Jenny's stomach growled 'cause she didn't have breakfast this morning, and it scared Nick or something, so he fled from the cafeteria", Connor reported. At this point, Jenny folded her arms onto the table and put her head down. "Are you okay, Jenny?", Abby asked with concern. She received no answer.

"You gonna eat your muffin?", Connor asked, getting a glare from Abby and Sarah. Getting no answer from Jenny, Connor looked both ways as if he was crossing the street, carefully attempted to highjack Jenny's muffin, but the second he touched it, Danny threw a cupcake at Connor, hitting him square in the forehead. "IT STICKS!", Danny cheered in victory. Becker and Stephen laughed. "Okay, maybe I shouldn't have tried to steal her muffin, but honestly, who throws a cupcake? Really", Connor sarcastically replied.

"Well, amidst all this chaos, please excuse me", Stephen announced to his friends. "Where you going?", Becker asked. "I'm going to go try to find Nick", he explained. "In case you forgot", Abby rudely interjected, "Jenny's _crying_!"

"I realize that, but Nick wouldn't do this without a reason. I know him too well for him to do that."

Nick was hiding out at the ice-cream parlor, not eating ice-cream, just sitting at one of the stools at the bar. "Nick?", the owner, Mr. Schatz asked, recognizing the kid's face, "What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be at school?"

"Well something kinda scary happened today at school."

"Do you want to tell me about it?"

"Well, it wasn't something scary about _school_, it was one of my friends, this girl I sorta like,Jenny."

"Lewis?", Mr. Schatz checked.

"Yeah. Well see, we were at the movies yesterday, and we went to see _Xenomorphobia_."

"I heard that movie was pretty scary. Was it good?"

"Yeah", Nick continued. "Anyways, we were at this scary movie and her tummy growled, so we shared a popcorn bucket together. She liked the movie a lot, but to tell the truth, I was scared. But I had a nightmare last night where I'm on the space station from _Xenomorphobia_, and I find her, but her belly growls again and she turns into the alien and tries to eat me. It was scary."

"I'll imagine it was", the man commented. "Continue."

"So anyways this morning I saw something scary in the dark while waitin' for the bus, and I fell asleep in class, and then at lunch, she sat next to me, but her stomach rumbled, and I got scared, both because I didn't want her to turn into a monster and because I didn't wanna get eaten up."

"Well I'm sorry to hear that son. I think I might know one of the solutions to your problem. If I'm correct, I think you might have a bad psychological association going on between the girl's stomach growling and the monster."

"What do you mean?", the curious boy asked Mr. Schatz.

"Well what I mean is if you are young and you nearly drown in a pool, you'd be afraid of water, wouldn't you?"

"Yeah, I guess so."

"Well that's it. You first heard Jenny's stomach growl and shared popcorn, then you had a bad dream where it happened but then she morphed into something scary. Then it happens at school, and you are scared that it would happen again. I understand, son. It's okay to be scared from time to time, but always remember that a dream is just a dream, and that a movie is pretend."

Stephen happened to walk by when Nick said the following.

"Well it wasn't the movie that scared me too much, it was that I wouldn't want it to happen to Jenny. She's very pretty, nice, and I love her."

After sneaking past the window to avoid being seen by Nick, Stephen went back to school to find the gang. "Hey Mr. Leek?", Stephen asked, "Where's everyone else?"

"I believe that they went to the park. Did you ever find Nick?", the teacher replied.

"Yes, sir. He was at the ice-cream shop talking with Mr. Schatz, and I learned why he got all scared and ran. It was because yesterday afternoon we went to go see _Xenomorphobia_, and Nick was scared. Then he had a nightmare where Jenny's stomach rumbled and then she turned into the monster. And when it happened once at lunch, it must've frightened him."

"Well that makes more sense. Go find your friends."

Stephen (who was also the second-fastest runner after Danny), bolted down to the park. At the two benches near the flagpole, he found his friends. Sarah and Abby were sitting with Jenny, who was in a river of tears, and Danny and Becker were trying to cheer her up. They didn't succeed, but at one point, desperate for attention, Connor inched his way up the 12-foot flagpole and spun around, but got wrapped up by the flag before dropping down, which brought a slight smile to Jenny's face for a second.

"Hey, guys, I know why Nick ran away!", Stephen announced.

"Why?", Jenny sniffed, "Because he thinks I'm fat or something?"

"No, not the least bit! I overheard him talking to Mr. Schatz, the ice-cream guy, and he said that you were very pretty, nice, and he loved you."

Jenny wiped off her tears. "Really?"

"Yeah." Everyone was surprised to find out that it wasn't Stephen who confirmed it, but Nick himself, who had showed up. "Jenny, I'm really sorry I ran away like how I did. I think you're very pretty, and I really like you. The reason I freaked out was because that movie we saw scared me, and I didn't want to look like a scaredy-cat. Can you forgive me?", he asked. Her face lit up. Standing up suddenly, Jenny rushed over to Nick and kissed him on the lips, hugging him tightly.

"I love you too!", she cried.

Connor, who was watching, appeared to be disgusted. "This lovey-stuff is making me sick!", he commented, before another cupcake hit him in the side of the head. "Two points and a foul!", Becker announced.

"Well what do you mean by that?"

"Well Danny scored two hits, which is two points. And you're a turkey, which is a fowl!", Becker joked.

Everyone burst out laughing.


	9. Paintball

"_Game over_", the announcer for the Primeval kids' favorite video game, based on their favorite show, _Aliens: Space Marines_, declared. Connor was the best gamer within the gang. He had just beaten Abby 20-2 in Deathmatch, playing as an Alien. "Can we do something else now?", Abby asked, exhausted after the constant carnage of Connor's Alien decapitating Abby's Marine over and over. "Well like what? There aren't any good movies at the theater right now, and we've played like 2 million games of softball."

"No Connor, you've got them confused", Nick chuckled, "That's how many games of _basketball _we've played!" Connor laughed. "Well what do you suggest we do?"

Suddenly a knock came on Connor's front door. "It's open!", he shouted. Becker barged through the front door, obviously all excited over something. "What's goin' on, Becks?", Nick asked. "Okay, so I assume you guys are as bored outta your skulls as I am?"

"Yes. Can you read our minds or something?", Connor questioned.

"Nobody can read your mind Connor", Becker commented.

"What makes you say that?"

"Well lemme put it to you this way, Connor: If your head was a book, all the pages would be blank!" Abby and Nick burst out laughing, and although it was an insult, Connor couldn't help but giggle.

"Well what were you saying about being bored?", Abby asked, continuing the conversation. "I helped my dad do a bunch of hard stuff this past weekend, and as a reward, he rented out the whole paintball park for us! And he's providing us with guns!" Becker exclaimed. "NICE!", shouted Nick. "Are we going today?" "Yep", Becker answered, "I was just coming to tell you guys. Danny, Helen, Stephen, Jenny and Sarah are already at the park waitin' for us! Come on!"

The four kids raced out of Connor's flat and ran to the parking lot, where Becker's dad, Phillip was waiting for him. Right away, the kids could already tell this would be a fun thing because not only were they going to spend the day playing paintball, but Becker's dad had picked them up in a military Humvee minus the turret.

"So how are you kids doing?", Phillip kindly asked. "We're doing okay sir, thanks for asking", Abby replied. After listening to some great stories about Phillip's service in Afghanistan, the kids reached the paintball park. "Hey guys!", Danny shouted. "Hey Mr. Becker!"

"At ease", Phillip remarked, receiving laughs from Danny and the other boys. "Okay kids, come over here. Now first of all, I want you to _always _wear your protective gear", he instructed.

"Like our clothes?", Connor blindly asked.

"Well, sort of", Phillip replied, not knowing the best answer to the worst question, "But I mainly mean headgear. While paintballs are not real bullets, they can really hurt, and if you are not careful, they can take out an eye. So always at least wear eye protection. Now second; when you are hit by a paintball, you are "out", meaning that you can't keep playing and shooting, but because it's just us, we'll say that if you get hit three times, you are out. Now here are your masks." Phillip handed each kid a mask. "Okay, now that you have your facial protection, here are your paintball markers."

"Paintball _markers_?", Helen asked, "I didn't know we were drawing."

"No, Helen, paintball marker is the official term for a paintball gun. Now our next step is to divide into even teams, Red Team and Blue Team. I'll leave that part up to you."

Becker, Nick, Danny, Stephen and Connor went on one team, while the girls were on the other. "Boys vs. Girls? Okay. Now boys, your base is the one with the red flag on it, and girls, yours has a blue one on it. Once you are at your bases, and you hear me blow the whistle, the match starts."

The two teams ran over to their respective bases, and took cover behind trees, barriers and large rocks. "On your mark... get set... *TWEEEET!*"

Paintballs started flying and splattering against cover as the boys and the girls were locked in combat. Nick was behind a barrel, too afraid to move or get up in the fear that he would get shot, but eventually he leaped up and took two shots, one which hit, at Abby. Nick laughed, but he got what was coming to him by Helen, who went trigger-happy on him. "Aww...", he moaned, holding his arms up and walking into the spectating area. More hails of paintballs flew at each team. Danny leaned out from behind a tree and was providing "suppressing fire" with a paintball gun, until he got shot three times at the same moment. Abby and Helen gave a hi-five, but Abby's arm got hit twice by Becker, who shouted in victory. "I'm out!", she announced, going to join Danny and Nick.

Determined to avenge Abby, Helen strafed through the storm of paintballs and took cover in the middle of the field. Connor took a shot at Helen, which missed, but caused her to trip and drop her gun. Attempting to crawl through the firefight and retrieve it, Connor finished the job; shooting her once in the shoulder, once in the belly, and once on her thigh. "OUT!"

Helen's sacrifice was not in vain however, because her distraction allowed Jenny and Sarah to advance. Taking aim, Jenny took three shots, all hits, at Stephen, who dropped his gun angrily and marched up to the spectating area.

"Concentrate fire on Jenny!", Becker shouted to Connor, who nodded in response. The two remaining boys lit Jenny up, who dropped her gun. "Jenny!", Sarah cried. Picking up her fallen friend's gun with one hand, she got up and started dual-wielding paintball guns, firing without letting up at the two boys who had just downed Jenny. Because Becker and Connor were pinned down, they couldn't look up to see where Sarah was shooting from, but that didn't matter, because Sarah had moved around their side and just lit them up. "OUT!", the two announced in unison.

Once the job was done, Sarah epically dropped both of her guns, which hit the ground at the same time. "I WON!", she shrieked in excitement and surprise. "I CAN'T BELIEVE- I MEAN, I THOUGHT I WAS GONNA DIE FIRST!" The rest of the girls, Jenny included, rushed over to Sarah and congratulated her and reminisced about how when Jenny went down, she picked up a gun and just lit the two boys up like a Christmas tree.

All in all, a rather successful game, which managed to take the boring out of the day.


	10. Quiet on the Set!

_"They're not the Galactic Army! They're not the National Navy! They are..._

_ THE SPACE MARINES!"_, the narrator of the Primeval kids' favorite show, _Aliens: Space Marines _announced. The gang replied with cheers and shouts.

_"As you'll recall last time we left our three bold heroes, Ringo, his second-in-command Ritter, and their android assistant, Rianna, experienced an onboard fire and were launched out of the ship in escape pods. Rianna was badly damaged, but luckily Ringo and his trusty pal Ritter managed to escape unharmed!" As our daring heroes continued their cruise through the cosmos, they were attacked by evil space _n00bs_, but using Ringo's superpowers and their dropship's payload of ARC-333 missiles, they managed to defeat the hostile threat! Now we rejoin the Marines at RX-214, where they are making preparations for a big challenge..."_

"Greetings... children...", Ringo warmly welcomed. Part of his character was in how he took pauses in a sentence before saying something witty or important. "As you are... aware, there is a Youth Film Festival in your neighborhood, and anyone may submit an... entry. The film may be about anything, any length, and the winners shall receive 100... dollars."

_"Will you and your friends submit a film to the Youth Film Festival? If so, when? And be sure to tune in tomorrow for another thrilling episode of... ALIENS: SPACE MARINES!"_

"Guys, we should _totally _enter that contest!", Stephen exclaimed. "Yeah", Nick agreed. "But what should we do it on? And how would we film it?" "Well my Dad has a video camera. But I don't know what we should do for a movie."

The group was silent for a minute, contemplating a theme for the movie. At last Helen piped up. "OOH! I got it! Why don't we make our own episode of _Aliens: Space Marines_?" "Hey, yeah! That's a nice idea", Becker agreed, patting Connor on the shoulder. "Where should we shoot, though?"

"Why not the junkyard?", Helen suggested.

"Eww... the junkyard's nasty!", Sarah whined.

"Not always. There are plenty of open spaces and items we can use. And we can just buy whatever we need", she explained.

"Alright. Just don't expect me to be doing anything yucky", Sarah reluctantly agreed.

"Deal. Okay, I'll be the director, and Stephen, you'll be our cameraman", Helen explained. "Can I play one of the characters?", Connor requested.

"I CALL RINGO!", Becker shouted.

"Dibs on Ritter!", Nick exclaimed.

"Aww man, why do _I _have to play Rianna?", Connor asked in frustration.

"Because you fit the character. You both don't keep your mouths shut!", Becker laughed. "Okay, so we've got our characters; who's going to write the script?"

"What's a script?", Sarah asked.

"It's basically like the story, what happens, and the characters' lines, which are the things that the characters say", Helen explained.

"Can I write it?", Jenny requested.

"Sure thing, Jenny. And Abby and Danny, you're going to design the sets."

Two days later, the Primeval kids had gathered together at the junkyard. Abby and Danny succeeded in creating a cost-effective, nice-looking Space Marine dropship with the help of their parents. Jenny had written a three-page script, which she was very proud of, and Stephen had borrowed his dad's movie camera. Sarah had acquired different clothing and props for the characters, and they were ready to shoot the first scene, which was where the dropship had been heavily damaged in a dogfight and the Marines had to land on the closest planet, which was Earth, and make repairs.

"QUIET ON THE SET!", Helen announced. "WHAT?", Connor yelled back in response.

Helen rolled her eyes. "QUIET ON THE SET! IT MEANS UNTIL I SAY ACTION, SHUT YOUR TRAP!"

"OKAY!"

After Connor's daily moronic act, the scene started.

"We are almost out of gas, rockets, and our ship is... damaged", said Becker. "What is the nearest planet... Ritter?"

"It appears to be a planet called 'Earth', Ringo."

"Copy that. Rianna, set a course for... Earth."

"Okey-Dokey!", Connor eagerly replied. "CUT! Connor, can't you remember your lines?", Helen asked in irritation. "I can't even remember what I had for breakfast this morning!"

"You're supposed to say, 'Roger Captain!'", Helen explained, trying not to blow her top.

After another take, Connor got his line correct, and the first scene was complete. "Nice work, guys!", Helen praised. "Okay, in this scene, the ship's descending down to Earth, so jump around and stuff. Act like the gravity's bouncin' around! ACTION!"

Nick and Becker were performing the way Helen envisioned it, but not completely. The "jumping around" was more similar to either somebody jumping and running in place while getting shot at or someone who was heavily drunk. What was worse that Connor was just standing in place. "Connor, what the heck are you doin'? Start jumping around!". Obeying his dictatorial director, Connor started bouncing around but fell out the window of the ship much to everyone's surprise. Zooming in on the window with the camera, Stephen filmed Connor poking his head through and waving at the camera.

"And... CUT!", Helen shouted.

The next scene was when the Marines had exited their dropship and encountered an Earth man, Stephen's dad, who was asked by his son to help them out for the movie, to which he gladly agreed. "ACTION!", Helen shouted. "Greetings, Earth man, we come in... peace", said Becker. Suddenly he slipped in a puddle and fell forwards before looking at the camera. "That's not in the script!", Stephen commented.

After another scene involving a chase, which was good except for the music played by Danny on harmonica which was supposed to be an epic chase scene, but sounded like a comical western song, the next scene filmed was where Rianna and Ritter are at the ship, surrounded by "junkyard monsters" (portrayed by Abby and Sarah) but holding them back with their pulse rifles. They were in a dangerous situation and were waiting for Ringo to come rescue them. Becker was at the top of a zipline the gang had constructed, where he would swoop down and drive off the bad guys. "ACTION!", Helen yelled. Danny was still playing music, but from within the dropship. "Captain Ringo! We need you!", Connor/Rianna wailed. "Look! Here he comes!", Nick exclaimed. Becker started sliding down the zipline, beginning his line. "Have no fear, friends. For I am..."

Suddenly the zipline's rope snapped, slinging Becker at the dropship.

"...HERE! *CRASH!*".

Upon striking the wooden dropship, Becker crashed straight through the door, revealing Danny, who was busy playing music until he looked up with an embarrassed grin and innocently waved. Suddenly the wooden ship started shaking. "Oh no! It's gonna fall!", Abby shouted. The kids ran away, but as Connor made a run for it, the wooden ship, which was no less than a foot thick, came down on top of him. He pulled himself out of the debris.

"Uh, cut", Helen weakly replied. "Well, we've finally got our footage. Stephen, you and Nick go back to Steve's house and get the footage and clips and stuff assembled."

"What should we call the movie?", Nick asked.

"How about 'Down to Earth'?", Abby suggested.

"Well even though I have the slightest suspicion it's been used ten years ago, I don't care. Down to Earth it is", Helen agreed. The next day, the kids' film had been prepared and submitted to the contest, and within the next week, the Film Festival had commenced.

"...And that, ladies and gentleman, was 'DINOSAURS', by Donovan Scandariato", the announcer stated. "Our next entry is called 'Down to Earth', directed by Helen Ambrosse and starring her friends."

The movie started, and the kids watched their week's effort play on the big screen. Helen had an embarrassed look on her face as she was forced to watch all of the line-errors, music-mishaps and all-around fails that had occurred during shooting. Everyone else in the auditorium found it a rather comical film.

"Why are they laughing at us?", Abby asked.

"They're not laughing at us", Nick explained, "They think we're funny! There's a difference."

4 minutes later, the movie ended. "And the winner of the Youth Film Festival and the $100 dollar cash prize goes to... 'Down to Earth'! By Helen and her friends! The kids started cheering and giving hi-fives. "Miss Helen, would you like to come up and say a few words?"

"Uhmm, guys?", Helen asked nervously.

With encouragement from the kids, Helen stepped up. "Well first of all, I wanted to thank you for this award, and I'm glad that you enjoyed our movie. But it was not just I who helped make our great movie. Guys, c'mon up an' take a bow!". The kids rushed onto the stage and bowed to their cheering families, friends and fans.


	11. Meet Jess

"You'd better watch out Connor", Danny bragged, "Because you're lookin' at the best basketball player in the world!"

"Well how come I'm only looking at you?" Connor passed the basketball to Abby, who dribbled it past Danny and scored. "We win!", she cheered. The kids had been playing basketball for the past hour or so, and Abby and Connor's team, consisting of them as well as Helen and Stephen, had been winning every game. At one point during the game, Becker happened to notice a slightly younger girl, perhaps 7 or 8 years old, watching the game. Excusing himself from the game, he went over to her.

"Hi. You're new here, huh?", Becker asked.

"W-we just moved in last w-week", the girl stuttered.

"That's cool. What's your name?"

"Jess."

"Nice to meet you Jess. They call me Becker. You wanna play some basketball with us?"

"I-I would, but I have to go to speech in a couple of m-minutes", Jess explained.

"Sure. Why do you have to go to speech?", Becker questioned.

"Because I-I have a stutter. I don't r-really like to t-talk about it. I gotta g-go."

"Okay. Maybe some other time then", Becker replied. Jess smiled and walked away.

Becker smiled as well. He could already tell he and Jess would be great friends, but he also liked her a bit more. "Hey Becks!", Nick shouted, "It's time for _Aliens: Space Marines_!" The kids quickly ran back to Stephen's place, and turned on the TV.

_"...They're not the Galactic Army! They're not the National Navy! They are... THE SPACE MARINES!"_

_"As you'll recall last time we left our three bold heroes, Ringo, his second-in-command Ritter, and their android assistant, Rianna, the Marines had run out of fuel for their dropship and were forced to land on Earth. But using Ringo's superpowers and his credit card, the Marines were able to take off again. However, the Marines received a distress call from Luna, and now we find the Marines helping the colonists with relief supplies after a nearby meteor strike. However, one of the colonists, a young crippled boy, is sad because he feels useless._

"What's wrong, young man?", Ringo asked. "Oh sir, I just feel crummy 'cuz I'm in a wheelchair and I can't do anything like my friends. They can run around and climb trees and swim, but I can't. I can't do_ anything_!"

"Xeno-Zip!", Ringo exclaimed. "You _are _special. Nobody is born perfect, nor can everybody become perfect. We all have our talents. You just have not found your's... yet. Everyone is a unique individual, and although you have a disability, you have abilities and talents that make up for it."

"You're right, Captain! Thanks!", the boy smiled.

_"...And so, with spirits rejuvenated and another colony saved, the Space Marines set off once more, until Rianna spotted something dangerous._

"Uh, Captain? We're headin' for the Milky Way!", Rianna exclaimed.

Looking out, the Marines spotted a giant, floating lake of milk.

"Crew, get out your... straws..."

_"Will our heroes survive their new perilous threat? If so, how? Tune in next time for Aliens: Space Marines!"_

Awhile later, the gang was back playing basketball, and Becker spotted Jess. "Hi, Jess", he warmly greeted. "H-Hi", she smiled. "Would you like to play with us? Our team needs all of the points we can get!"

"Uhmm, uh, sure. Can you teach me how to p-play?"

"Of course. C'mon over, and I'll introduce you to the guys." Jess followed Becker onto the court, and the other kids stopped what they were doing and looked. "Fellas, this is Jess. She just moved in."

"Hi, Jess!"

"What's happenin'!"

"Pleasure to meet 'ya!"

"What's the word!"

"H-hi guys", she replied. "Are you okay?", Sarah asked. Jess seemed either hurt or unsure, and looked at Becker. "Well guys, she's got a stutter, so please don't make fun of her, okay?" "'K. I'm sorry, Jess", Sarah apologized. "I-it's okay", she replied. "Well I'm Sarah. This is Connor, Helen, Danny, Nick, Jenny, Stephen and Abby. You wanna play with us?"

"Can you t-teach me?"

"Sure. Okay, so the first rule is you can't hold the ball in your hands. You have to dribble it."

"What's dribble m-mean?". Sarah demonstrated proper dribbling to Jess.

"Okay, second rule, and the goal of the game is to try to throw the ball through the hoop", she continued, pointing at the hoop.

"But you s-said we can't hold the ball?"

"If you're going to shoot, you can hold the ball, but you have to throw it into the hoop."

After some basic instructions, the game started. For a beginner, Jess did relatively good, better than Connor, who had been playing for half of his life. Eventually the game ended, and Jess checked her watch: 4 o'clock. "Uh, I-I have to go. Bye e-everybody!"

"Bye Jess! See you at school tomorrow!"

It had been a great day, and Becker felt two things. The first was feeling proud of himself for helping her out and helping her make new friends, and the other was that he sort of liked her, but not just as a friend.


	12. Connor's Grades

**This chapter is one of my favorites, mainly because it based on my own struggles academically, minus History and English/Language Arts but mostly in Math (NO, I did not have problems with the types of math problems in this XD). It is also based on one of the episodes of **_**Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids**_**. Enjoy my friends!**

The Primeval kids were in their classroom at the end of math class and were eagerly awaiting the recess bell. "Man, I just wish time would fly so that we could go play!", Abby sighed. "It does. All you need is a clock and a high window!", Danny joked. The bell rang a minute later, and the kids got up and started to walk out the door. Mr. Leek stopped Connor on his way out. "Connor, may I talk to you for a minute, please?" "Of course, sir", the boy replied.

"I wanted to let you know that your grades are not looking too good, especially your math ones. I know for a fact that you could bring it back up, you're a very bright boy, but if you don't bring your grades back up, the school administrators will have to put you in another classroom."

"B-but that means I won't be in class with the guys", Connor stuttered.

"I understand. I wouldn't want that to happen to you, and I know you and your friends wouldn't either. But if you can work to bring your grades up 10% by the end of the month, you just might be able to stay with us. There are quarterly tests tommorow, and if you passed those, then you might be able to get the extra score. I'm also sure your friends would like to help you out."

"Thanks Mr. Leek!", Connor smiled.

An hour later, recess had ended and the kids were now at their lockers. "Guys, can I tell you something?", Connor asked. "Sure", Abby replied, "What's wrong?"

"Well Mr. Leek told me my grades ain't too good, and if I don't bring them back up by the end of the month, I'll be put in a different class!"

"Oh Gorman, that's awful!", Jenny exclaimed.

"Yeah, so anyways, we got those tests tommorow and I was wondering if you guys would help me study?" "Sure thing, Connor. We'll come with you to your place after school", Nick agreed.

Sometime later, the kids were at Connor's apartment. "Okay Connor, first tell us what your worst subject is."

"All of 'em!"

"No, I mean in terms of grades."

"Uh, Math."

"Alright, now what is your best?"

"Lunch!"

The kids laughed, but Nick pulled them back together. "Okay, so in Math, what are you having trouble with the most?" "These things", he explained, pointing to an addition sign (+) and then a division sign (▪I▪ [this is sideways because my computer can't type one =(]), "I can't see the difference between them!"

"Okay, well the one with the two straight lines, one going up and one going sideways, that's a 'plus' sign. It means that you add, like, for example (2 + 3 = 5)", he demonstrated."

"Well I know that one, but this other one's hard because it looks like that one", Connor continued.

"That's a division sign. It means to divide."

"And that means...?"

"Well suppose we both have four cookies, and we want to divide them evenly. Mathematically, that would be (4/2 =2), so we each get two cookies-"

"Hey, what about me?", Helen interjected. "I want a cookie too!"

"Knock it off, Helen. Anyways Connor, there's another way of writing division. Instead of having the line with a dot above it and one below it, what you can do is keep the line, but on the top, or the numerator, put the number you're dividing, in this case four, and on the bottom, the denominator, put the second number, two. Here, I'll write two problems for you."

Nick wrote: (6/3 =?) and (8/8 =?). "Alright, now try to solve these."

Connor spent about 5 minutes on the first problem, and got it right, but his brain went dead on the second one. "Okay Nick, I'm sorry, but I can't figure this one out." "Well basically, if you're dividing a number by itself, like (8/8) or (20/20), the answer is always one", Nick explained.

"Well, you keep studying Connor", Nick stated. "But we all have to go now. Keep working hard buddy, I know you can do it."

"Thanks", Connor smiled.

Awhile after the kids had left, Connor was still studying relentlessly, but was feeling both upset, tired and hopeless. He heard a knock on the door. "Come in", he replied. His mother came in. "Oh, I didn't know you were studying, I'm sorry." "No, it's okay, Mom."

Connor's mother sat down next to him. "Son, I just wanted to let you know that your father and I are very proud of you for committing yourself to studying, but more importantly I wanted to let you know how much we love you, no matter what your grades are", she explained, before kissing her son on the cheek.

"Thanks Mom", Connor smiled.

His mother left the room, and at that moment, Connor's motivation to keep studying was revived.

"...Alright class, here are your test papers", Mr. Leek announced the next day, passing the test papers to the students. The students began working, and 30-40 minutes later, all of the children had turned in their test papers, which had been graded by Mr. Leek. The bell rang, and the kids went out the door to go outside, but Mr. Leek stopped Connor.

"Connor, I graded your paper, and I have lots of great news for you. First, you passed the test, AND, you actually had the highest score in the entire class."

"Wow! Really?", Connor eagerly asked.

"Yes. Which means that you will be able to stay in my class with your friends. Your parents will be so proud when you bring your test paper and your report card home."

"Yeah", Connor smiled, thinking of his mother.


	13. No More Jokes

**There are some (one wildly obvious) references to multiple things, such as the hermaphrodite pop-singer Justin Bieber, the PC game **_**Minecraft**_**, the comedy show Saturday**** Night Live, the epic sci-fi movie **_**Aliens**_** and of course, **_**Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids **_**contained in here, as well as one mildly inappropriate term (p***ed), which I hope you will not go around repeating. See if you can find all of the references!**

"...That's a good one, Becks, but answer this: 'Why isn't your nose twelve inches long'?", Becker's cousin, Matt, asked as the two walked to the basketball court. "I don't know. Why isn't it?", Becker replied. "Because then it would be a foot!" The two boys laughed before Becker introduced his cousin to the Primeval kids.

"Hey guys, this is my cousin, Matt. He's staying with me for a month while his folks are on vacation." The kids warmly welcomed and greeted Matt. "Nice to meet you guys. Anyone care for a Crunch bar?"

"Sure man, I'd love one!", Helen replied. Becker giggled.

Helen opened the wrapped and screamed. Right where her delicious chocolate would be, there was a real, dismembered human finger, or so she though. Becker fell to pieces laughing.

Breathing heavily, Helen threw the fake finger back at Matt. "That's not funny at all!", she growled. "Yeah it actually kinda was", Danny remarked, chuckling.

Later on, the kids were at Abby's flat, hanging out. Stephen and Abby were absorbed by the video game that they were playing, Connor was on his computer, playing _Minecraft_, which he had bought recently, and Becker, Jenny, Nick and Sarah were playing the _Aliens: Space Marines _board game in the kitchen. Danny and Matt, however, were out of sight, preparing another prank.

"This is a cutout of the Megopteran from _Xenomorphobia_, Danny. Watch this", Matt explained. Matt silently crept up behind the couch Abby and Stephen were sitting on, and carefully placed the realistic-looking cardboard cutout behind Stephen. Once the cutout was in place, Matt went back over to Danny, and made a rather loud but believable hissing noise. Stephen turned around.

"OH MY GOD!", Stephen shouted in surprise. Everyone looked up from what they were doing to see what the commotion was. After getting his breath back and cooling down, Stephen noticed Matt and Danny in hysterics. "Hey man, that wasn't funny at all! Why'd you freakin' do that?", he angrily asked. "Yeah, seriously Matt, that wasn't too cool", Becker commented. Abby nodded in agreement.

"Okay, I'm sorry Stephen. Really, I am."

Stephen didn't seem too convinced. "You just stay away from me Matt, are we clear?"

"Clear as crystal."

The next day, the kids were back at Abby's place hanging out again. As promised, Matt kept his distance from Stephen, who glared at him every time they made eye contact. But Matt had another trick up his sleeve. And this time it was aimed at Connor.

Connor was still absorbed in _Minecraft_, and Matt came over to him. "Hey Connor, you wanna be the first to beat something out of everyone here?"

"What?"

"Well there's this maze game with four levels, and nobody's ever beaten it because they're a bunch of chickens."

"Hey, I'm a turkey, but I am not a chicken. I'll beat that maze."

Matt pulled up the maze game, and got everyone over to spectate. The first two levels were not challenging at all, but on the third level, the maze was significantly more narrow, forcing Connor closer to the screen. "Man, this maze is so hard", he commented. When his dot was halfway down the maze, a scary picture of a young male pop-singer and one of his loudest, worst songs ever popped up. Connor screamed in sheer terror and the other kids minus Matt did as well. Connor screamed and yelled before punching straight through his computer monitor. "WHY?", he sobbed in frustration, "WHY'D YOU DO THAT?". Matt didn't seem to care, because he was too busy laughing at both Connor's reaction to the monster as well as the fact that he had just wet his pants. Connor ran out crying, and Nick went after him.

Abby was pissed-off, her fists clenched, her teeth gritted, and was overall more angry than a mother bear defending her cubs. With all her strength (which was a lot, and I mean a _lot_), she punched Matt in the chest, knocking onto the floor. Matt was clearly more terrified than Connor was, as he was desperately trying to crawl away. He got up, but Abby punched him hard in the back of the head, knocking him back down. Abby moved to strike him again, but Helen and Becker stopped her.

"Matt, I think it would be best if you didn't hang out with us no more", Stephen commented.

Head hung in shame, Matt sadly walked out the door, with both tears and blood on his face.

"Well this is just great", Helen remarked, "Connor wet himself, broke his computer monitor, and Abby beat the crud out of Matt." "Well he _deserved_ it", Abby growled in response, "Scaring Connor, making him break his computer screen, scaring all of us to death on more than one occasion..."

For the next hour, the gang was just sitting around staring at things, thinking about the big rustle that had recently occurred when Nick and Connor came back. Connor had a cast over his right arm as well as a new pair of jeans.

"You okay, Connor?", Abby asked in concern for her friend. He nodded slowly.

"The reason he's wearing the cast is because when he punched through the monitor, his arm got cut up pretty badly. You should've seen how much blood was on his arm. No offense, Connor."

"None taken", Connor muttered, briefly smiling at Nick.

"Well you should've seen the blood on that turkey Matt's face when I knocked some sense into him", Abby commented, before rushing up to her injured friend and hugging him. Suddenly somebody knocked on the door. Opening it, the kids were surprised to see Matt. "I thought we told you to make like a maze and get lost", Danny questioned.

"You did. And I will. But first I wanted to give Connor-". Abby rushed up to him and grabbed the collar of his shirt. "_You had better not try to pull any more scares. You hear me?_", she growled. "Let go of him Abby", Danny ordered. Abby released the boy from her grip. "You were saying...?", asked Danny. "I wanted to give Connor... this." Matt pulled a wagon into the flat, and inside was a brand new laptop.

"Wow!"

"Oh my Gorman!"

Danny scoffed. "Is it gonna blow up when we turn it on?"

"No", Matt replied, "But I don't blame you for asking. I just wanted you to have it and to say I'm sorry. Well, I guess I'll see you around."

"Hold up Matt", said Nick, "It took a lotta courage to come back here. And I can't speak for the others, but I'd kinda like it if you'd stick around and catch _Aliens: Space Marines _with us." The other kids started smiling and nodding their heads. "You mean it?", Matt asked. "Yeah", Abby replied. "Matt, I'm very sorry. Can you please forgive me?"

"If anything, I should be saying that to you, Abby. And Connor, I can't put in words how sorry I am."

"It's O.K!", Connor grinned.

"Aw Gorman, thanks guys!", Matt smiled.

"Sure. Just one thing: you can tell jokes, but no pullin' them", Stephen added.

"Deal. In fact, you guys can have all this junk!" Matt emptied all of his prank tools, gags and gross-out toys, including a monster mask (pop-singer edition), a fake quarter, the folded-up Megopteran cutout, and the fake finger that he had used to scare Helen.

"Dibs on the quarter!", Stephen shouted.

"I'll take the finger!", Helen claimed.

"I call the ugly mask!", Danny declared.

"Okay. Can I have the one you're wearing?", Connor asked.

Everyone had a laughing equivalent of a heart attack.


	14. The Raid Part 1

**With no sexist or malicious intent, this chapter is about a theme you hear about or watch on television, and one of the things that you can't call yourself a man until you pull off: raiding a 4****th**** grade girls' slumber party. Nothing misogynistic or sexist, just a humorous version of a failure attempt.**

"Okay class, time to get ready for the weekend!", Mr. Leek announced. As some of the kids got their backpacks and other items out of their lockers, Danny noticed Jenny subtly handing a note to Helen, and went over to investigate.

"What was that note you gave Helen?", he asked curiously. Jenny gasped and turned around. "Please don't startle me like that, Danny." "Okay, I'm sorry. But what was that little thing you gave Helen?"

"It's a girl thing", Jenny grinned.

"Come on Jenny, you're gonna have to try a little bit harder than that."

"Alright, if I tell you, which I really shouldn't, will you keep shut?"

"Sure..."

"Tonight, me, Sarah, Helen, and Abby are having a slumber party. Girls only. Period. Any other questions?" "Nope, you've answered pretty much all of them", Danny laughed. Jenny smiled.

"A _WHAT_?", the rest of the guys asked again in disbelief after hearing the news. "A slumber party. Jenny told me. Girls only, tonight", Danny confirmed. "W-w-this can't be happening", Connor stuttered. "Game over, man! Game over!" "No Connor, not yet", Danny said. "My dad used to pull raids on slumber parties with his friends when he was in collage. You got something better to do tonight?"

"No..."

"Alright then. If anyone wants to step out, do so now."

The other boys still stood standing.

"That's what I thought. No turkeys here. Alright, we don't know what we'll be faced with in the slumber party, so we need gear and armor."

Becker raised his hand. "My dad got me a bunch of airsoft guns for Christmas! An' BBs for them, too!" "Excellent. Alright, now everyone go find a costume or armor or something. These girls may be armed and dangerous. We meet at Becker's place in approximately one hour." The boys ran back to their respective homes to find armor.

When an hour had passed, the boys had regrouped at Becker's home with armor. Nick was dressed with a suit of medieval knight armor, Connor basically looked like a robot made out of cardboard, Danny and Becker were both Colonial Space Marines, and Stephen was a clone trooper from _Star Wars_. Becker handed everyone their airsoft guns, magazines and BBs. Nick received a sniper rifle and a pistol, Connor got just a pistol, which he was not too happy about, Stephen got a G36C, Danny got a Colonial Space Marine M41A Pulse Rifle, and Becker had a combat shotgun. The boy cocked his shotgun, and all the other boys loaded their weapons and put on sunglasses. "Let's rock...", Becker muttered, in a voice similar to the Terminator.

After a 20-minute march, the "soldiers" had reached Jenny's house. Sure enough, her bedroom light was on, and they could just barely hear laughter. "Okay, Nick, you go climb up onto Mrs. Jones's roof and provide sniper support. I don't see a car in their driveway or garage, so I assume Jenny's parents aren't home. Stephen and Connor, you breach through the back door. Danny and I will enter through the front door. Operation: Ghost Town is a go."

"Operation: Ghost Town?", Connor asked, "Shouldn't it be like, 'Operation: Panty Raid' or something?"

"Connor, for the love of..."

"Sorry, Becker", Connor apologized.

"Okay, whatever." Becker pulled out a walkie-talkie. "Nick, you read me?"

"Yep. I'm on the roof. I have a clear shot on Sarah. Take the shot?", the sniper requested. "Affirmative." Nick took aim and fired a BB, but it merely hit the window and dropped to the ground. "Hit", Nick reported. "Nice shot. Alright team, move up to the doors and prepare to breach on my mark", Becker ordered. "3... 2... 1... MARK!"

Upstairs, Jenny and the girls were talking, gossiping, throwing darts at cardboard cutouts of awful people, and overall having a good time, unaware that their slumber party was about to be assaulted by the group of boys. The girls were playing truth-or-dare, and it was Jenny's turn. "Truth or dare?", Sarah asked.

"Truth."

"What were you and Danny talking about at school today?"

"Mustard", she muttered, knowing she would have to tell her friends. "Alright. Danny was bugging me, so I had to tell him about our slumber party." Abby and Sarah gasped, and Helen, who was chugging down a large bottle of root-beer, spat it out. "_What_? Why'd you do that?", Abby asked.

"Because we're going to get them first. We are prepared, ladies. We have some BB guns here, and we're way smarter than them. They'd expect us to be playing truth-or-dare still, but we're gonna ambush them, take them down, and they'll be our prisoners for the rest of the night!".

"Well if we did get boys for prisoners, what would we make them do?", asked Sarah.

"Well, I don't know. Maybe something like make them only wear their underwear, or make them kiss us, or wear nail polish for the rest of the weekend, or something like that. Let's get this ambush set up ladies!", Jenny declared. The girls got into their ambush positions: Jenny and Sarah were hiding in the closet, airsoft submachine guns ready, Helen was "bait", standing in the center of Jenny's bedroom to distract the boys, and Abby was lying in wait in the hall closet with a shotgun.

"Gosh, it's quiet in here", Stephen remarked as the four-man squad slowly crept through the seemingly-deserted house. "Yeah, too quiet", Danny added. "Just keep your eyes and ears peeled", Becker instructed. "Connor, you're up point."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means that you're the line-leader, and if the girls are armed, then you'll be the first one to get shot."

"Well that's a comforting thought", Connor sarcastically replied. Eventually, the boys had made it up to Jenny's bedroom, and were stacked up outside of the door.

"Breach in 3... 2... 1! BREACH!" Danny kicked the door open and the boys stormed into the room with their guns aimed at Helen, who was simply standing there smiling at them. "What now, Action Man?", Connor asked. Becker was silent. "Becker?"

"Connor, to tell you and the other guys the truth, I don't know. I never actually thought we'd make it this far."

"Well you _boys _may not have planned your moved, but we have. Girls!", Helen shouted. Jenny and Sarah burst through the closet, with their guns armed at the attacking boys. "Impressive move, Helen", Becker scoffed, trying to hide the fact that he was suddenly feeling nervous. "But we still outnumber-" Becker felt the barrel of a shotgun press against the back of his head. "Drop the guns, please", Abby ordered. Becker sighed, finally accepting defeat. "Do as she says, men." The boys set their guns down on the floor and put their hands behind their heads. At that point, Nick radioed in on the walkie-talkie. "By the way Becker, when I said 'hit', I mean I hit the _window_. Sorry, mate."

"And you waited until now to tell me that. For once, I'm not sure if this will have a happy ending."


	15. The Raid Part 2

**Quick Note: One of the scenes may sound like sex or suggest it, but just for the record it is not; merely childhood affection/romance. The third dare/punishment (involving the swimsuits) does not revolve around anything sexual. The rest of the sentence is "rate us on how cute we are on a scale of 1-10."**

"Well this is just humiliating", Stephen murmured. "Kidnapped during an attack on a slumber party. By the girls. Who had freakin' guns." "What should we do with them?", Sarah asked. "I've got a few fun ideas", Jenny replied, grinning.

"Let's hear 'em."

"Okay, so there are a few things. First, is we make them all wear sparkly nail polish."

"Oh No! No, No No!", Danny begged.

"Second, we play "Spin the Bottle" and "Truth-or-Dare" with them."

Becker and Stephen both gasped in horror.

"Third, we wear our swimsuits, and we get them to-." Before Jenny could finish the sentence, Connor ran out of the room screaming in sheer terror. "Abby, go after him! We can't let him get away", ordered Jenny. "I'm on it!", Abby replied, grabbing her shotgun and rushing downstairs.

"Alright boys, do you want to play "Truth-or-Dare", "Spin the Bottle", or get your nails painted first?", Sarah asked. "D: None of the above", Becker flatly replied. "Spin the Bottle it is, then".

Jenny, Sarah, Helen and their POW "boyfriends" sat in a circle, and using Helen's empty root-beer bottle, the game began. Sarah spun first, and it landed on Stephen. Sarah had open eyes and a big smile on her face, and Stephen had confusion written all over his. "Well what now?", he finally asked. "Sarah spun the bottle, and it landed on you. You have to kiss her", Helen explained. Jenny giggled. "No, I'm not doing that!", he protested. Suddenly he got shot 10 times in the stomach with a BB gun. "...OW! That stings! Why'd you do that?", Stephen yelled.

"Every time you do or say something mean, gross, or don't do what we say, you get shot. We clear?", Helen declared. "And that goes for you two, too." Becker and Danny both looked at each other with concerned looks on their faces.

Sarah and Stephen both moved up to each other. Sarah closed her eyes and puckered her lips, but Stephen had another trick up his sleeve, or in this case, in his mouth... "*HUAACCCGGHHH!*". Stephen spat in Sarah's mouth, and Sarah screamed in horror, before running into the bathroom and going through two bottles of mouthwash. Becker and Danny were laughing uncontrollably, but the laughter suddenly ceased when they were both shot 5 times each, and Stephen instantly regretted his actions when Helen emptied half of a MP5 clip into him.

"Bad Stephen! Bad!", Helen chided. "I'm not a freakin' dog, okay?", Stephen angrily retorted.

"Well you sure act like one."

"Oh shut up, Helen."

"Hey, wait a minute", said Jenny, "There's someone missing. Where's Nick?" "Uh, we don't know", Becker mumbled. "Oh yes you do. Now where is he? You were talking to him on a walkie-talkie."

"Well do you wanna call him and say hi?"

"Oh I'm not calling him over here. _You _are."

"Or what?", Becker snapped back. Instantly he regretted asking, because at that point, Sarah had arrived back from the upstairs bathroom. Jenny handed Sarah her rifle, and Helen and Sarah took aim and opened fire on Becker, not taking their fingers off of the triggers. Some 500 BBs later, the two girls reloaded. "You ready to call Nick now?", Jenny asked.

"...Yes", Becker coughed.

Nick was still sitting around on the roof of the house across the street from Jenny's. "Nick, do you read me?". Nick pulled out his radio. "This is Nick. What's the matter?", he asked. "Nothing. We just need you to come over here, right away." Nick seemed somewhat suspicious. "May I ask why?". "Because we just need some backup here. Please."

"Copy that. I'm on my way." Nick dropped down off of the roof, and with his pistol equipped, quickly and quietly moved across the street. Nick made his way into Jenny's house, moved upstairs, and opened the door to find 3 submachine guns aimed at him, with his comrades up against the wall. "Drop the gun, Nick", Helen advised. "You can't win." Nick desperately looked back and forth, and realized that his friend was right. Nick carefully set his sniper rifle and pistol on the floor.

"Hi, Nick!", Jenny squealed in anticipation.

"Hey cutie", he casually replied. Helen rolled her eyes.

The game of Spin-the-Bottle was resumed, and when she got to kiss Nick on the lips without any spitting, resistance or gagging, it was the happiest moment of her life. Becker, Stephen and Danny were not so thrilled by the fact that their comrade was willingly kissing a girl on the lips. "If only Connor was here", Danny muttered to Becker.

Since Connor had fled the room at the beginning of Spin-the-Bottle, Abby was seeking her prey with a flashlight and a shotgun. Connor had managed to evade Abby for quite some time now, and was stealthily moving into another hiding place every time Abby had her back turned in his direction. Connor had left his suit of "armor" back upstairs, which was to his advantage, as it made him a less-visible target and the suit also slowed him down. Unfortunately, he was unarmed. While hiding in a bush, Connor remembered something: somebody had left a pistol on the kitchen table. He stood up to go sneak back into the house, but he was spotted by Abby, who started to pursue him while firing at him. There was a pattern of: "Stop!" *Pow!* "OW!", until Connor made it into the house and grabbed the handgun.

"Abby, please. I don't wanna do this", Connor begged, breathing heavily.

"Oh? Why not? 'Cause I'm a better shot or because I got the better gun?", she asked.

"Neither. It's because I like you."

"We're friends, and I like you too."

"No, I mean I actually like you a bit more than that. I l-love you", Connor stuttered. Abby dropped her gun on the floor, and her lips wobbled into a smile, a tear rolling down her cheek. Abby grinned, before pouncing onto Connor like a cat and hugging him tightly, kissing him over and over again. Connor made no attempt to resist, as he actually enjoyed it himself; his best friend and a beautiful girl on top of him, hugging and kissing him to death. "I love you too, Connor", she whispered into his ear.

Meanwhile upstairs, the girls had just finished humiliating the guys by painting their fingernails and toenails either red, purple or blue, and were starting the swimsuit contest. The bikini tops and bottoms were the same designer for all three girls, but they had different colors and camouflage patterns. Sarah's had caught the attention of Becker; her bikini was a camouflage pattern with colors of orange, brown and yellow. Next was Jenny, who had tiger stripes. "Looking good, Jenny", Nick commented. Jenny blushed, but Stephen was not too pleased with his friend, and pinched his leg to snap him out of it. Helen had a camouflage pattern similar to the CAD-PAT camo used by the Canadian Army, but Danny's eyes were more focused at her waist. Although Helen had been working out constantly since she had gained 25 pounds eating chocolate, she still had a somewhat noticeable potbelly.

"Whaddya think, Danny?", she asked. "Nice swimsuit, Helen. In fact, why don't you swim on down to the gym?" Becker and Stephen fell to pieces laughing, while Nick chuckled briefly. Unfortunately, Danny didn't realize he had just made a very bad move.

"Oh you're callin' me fat, huh?", she snarled. Grabbing her MP5 as well as Sarah's, holding one in both hands, she aimed at Danny. "Call me fat one more time. I dare you."

Putting on his best Fat Albert voice, Danny replied:

"Hey, Hey, HEY!"

Instantly after the insult, Helen opened up on Danny, who started screaming in pain and putting his hands in front of his face. Even Jenny and Sarah seemed a bit concerned. "Helen, I think that's enough", said Sarah. Helen paid no attention to her friend, continuing to light the screaming Danny up.

Suddenly the door blasted open, and on the other side stood Connor, who was holding Abby's shotgun, and Abby, who was standing behind him with a partially dreamily look on her face. Taking advantage of the fact that Helen was wearing flip-flops, Connor shot her in the foot. Helen dropped the guns and clenched her foot, cursing in pain. "Bye, Honey", Connor said to Abby, kissing her on the cheek, "Me an' the guys gotta run!" "Sure, Cutie", she happily and peacefully replied. "Guys, grab yer guns! We are falling back to the master bedroom!"


	16. The Raid Part 3

The imprisoned boys managed to quickly scoop up Danny's pulse rifle, Becker's shotgun, an additional magazine and a couple of shells for their weapons, and two pistols before sprinting through the upstairs hallway, closely being pursued by the girls, who were firing at them. The soldier boys dove into Jenny's parents' bedroom and quickly slammed the door shut before locking it. The girls angrily banged against the locked door. "Well this is just great", Sarah scowled, "Now we'll never get them." Sarah then turned towards Abby with a disappointed and betrayed look on her face. "Why'd you help a _boy_?"

Abby, who was still convinced she was in heaven, whispered something in Jenny's ear. Jenny's eyes opened wide, and she passed the news to Helen, who in turn, shared it with Sarah. All four girls screamed in excitement and joy for Abby.

"Men, we may be sitting in the Alamo here", Becker declared to the rest of his friends, who were sprawled across the floor in exhaustion. "But out best chance is to hold out with every BB, every blade, and hold tight until the cavalry arrives." "What cavalry?", Connor asked. "Connor, you've got a great skill for asking the worst questions at the worst times", Becker sarcastically answered. Turning his focus to their current situation, he looked at Danny. "You alright, Danny?", he asked.

"Yeah man, I'm cool", he smoothly replied.

"Nice. Nick, what's our weapon situation?", Becker asked.

"Okay, this is everything we could salvage from the girls. One pulse rifle with 50 BBs in it. That ain't so good. One shotgun with 3 shells, and two pistols with 14 BBs each. That's everything", Nick replied.

"If you want, I'll go out and try to get some more guns. Just give me a pistol and watch the door", said Danny.

"Danny, don't", Nick warned.

"I have to, guys. It's the only way. We're not gonna last 17 minutes unless we get some better stuff."

"Please be careful, buddy", Nick requested. Danny nodded in response, and picked up one of the pistols. "-WAIT!" Danny turned around. "Well couldn't they still be out their waiting for us?", Connor suggested. "That's true, they could be", Becker agreed. "Look under the door. Nick, in case there's anyone on the other side, shoot on sight."

"Just please don't hurt Abby", Connor pleaded.

"Wish me luck, fellas!"

Danny slowly crept out of the door, with the other boys vigilantly guarding the entrance. Danny gave a thumbs-up, and the guys sealed the door. The second they shut the door, Danny chickened out, ran down the stairs and bolted out the front door, running back home as fast as his chicken legs could carry him.

"I hope Danny's okay", Stephen commented with concern for his comrade, unaware that his "heroic" friend fled to save his own skin and had deprived them of a gun. At the same time, the girls, who also had no idea that Danny wussed out, were in Jenny's room, planning their next assault on the boys. "Okay girls, let's review this one more time", Jenny announced, "Sarah, you know how to use the circuit-breaker in the laundry room, right?"

"Yeah."

"Nice. Okay, you're only going to flip my parent's bedroom switch to "off" when Abby gives the signal. Abby, you take this gun, and stand down to give the signal. Once she cuts the power, come back up here. Alright?"

"'K."

"And Helen, once the lights are out in the room, use this paperclip to break the lock."

"Aye, aye!"

…

"Why the heck isn't Danny back yet?", Nick questioned several minutes later. "I don't know", Stephen replied, "But we can't worry about that. We need to-". Suddenly the lights went out. "Oh no!", Nick gasped. Remembering where it was, Becker made his way through the darkness over to the wall where the lightswitch was, and repeatedly flickered the switch up and down, but no lights came on. "They cut the power", he whispered.

"Whaddya mean 'they cut the power'? How could they cut the power?", Connor wailed in both horror and disbelief. "I got some glowsticks in my pocket!", Stephen interjected. "Light 'em!", Becker ordered. Stephen snapped the handful of purple and green lights, which provided the pitch-black room with minimal visibility. Suddenly the boys heard a tingling noise, like metal rattling against something, followed by a 'click'. Becker grabbed the pulse rifle, handed Connor his shotgun, and Stephen picked up the remaining pistol. "Boys, this is it: Hold your positions!", Becker yelled.

The door flew open, and what appeared to be a pillow with legs stormed into the room, backed up by Jenny, Sarah and Abby, who opened fire on the surviving boys. The pillow was actually Helen, who was using it as a shield. She moved forwards and pinned the unarmed Nick against the wall. The boys had to fall back, until they reached a wall. "Get outta here, no matter what it takes", Becker instructed, swapping weapons with Stephen. "BECKER!", Stephen cried, as Becker heroically dashed around the girls in an effort to buy Connor and Stephen some time. "Sarah, after him!", Jenny barked. Becker leaped over the upstairs side rail and landed with a *THUD* on the couch below. Sarah hopped over as well, and landed on top of Becker, who extended his arms to catch her. When she landed, their lips touched. Becker and Sarah both had surprised looks on their face, but the looks changed from surprised to content ones a few seconds later.

Meanwhile, Stephen and Connor were making their last stand upstairs against Jenny and Abby finally managed to subdue the boys, who dropped their weapons in defeat. The three girls escorted the three boys downstairs, where they were shocked to find Becker and Sarah in eachother's arms, kissing. Becker suddenly turned and noticed the six other kids standing behind the couch with confused and surprised looks on their faces. "This is _exactly _what it looks like", he explained, seeing no need to lie.

At that moment, everyone, both the boys and the girls, felt surprisingly happy, despite the chaotic ordeal that had been going on for the past 3-and-a-half hours. Nick and Jenny had already admitted their affections for eachother, Becker and Sarah's were wildly obvious; as were Connor and Abby's. Stephen felt something as well, and turned towards Helen. "Do you like me", he finally asked.

"Yeah. Do you think I'm fat or ugly?", she asked in response.

"Not at all. I really like you too, Helen", he replied. Helen blushed, and the two friends hugged.

…

The next day, Danny was playing basketball alone when he spotted the rest of the boys with the same spaced-out looks that Abby had that previous night. "What was... Why didn't you turkeys run?", Danny asked. "Because we didn't need to", Becker replied happily. "Why?", Danny snidely remarked, "Because you guys liked playing with girls?"

"At least we had girls."

"Oh whatever. Let's just play."


	17. Physical Exams

It was physical checkup-day at Anomaly Elementary School, where the school and the kids' parents were able to review the students' health and measurements.

"Good morning kids", the physician, Dr. Mikey, began, "Now this won't take too long. We're just doing a few tests, sort of like a check-up."

Abby raised her hand. "What kind of tests?"

"Doing things like checking your weight, height, reflexes, blood pressure, eyes, ears, that sort of thing", the doctor explained. "Alright, now who wants to go first? Um, how about you, uh, Hilary Becker?"

The second he said the boy's first name, Becker was embarrassed beyond belief. He slowly walked up to the scale, head hung in shame like a dog that had just gotten caught doing something wrong. "I kinda like that name", Sarah kindly whispered to Becker as he passed by. The boy smiled.

After Becker's tests, which all except for a few were at the front of the small room, it was Helen's turn. Helen walked up, and stood on the scale. The scale read "142.2", and Helen seemed rather surprised, but in a good way. Becker had shared his height and weight with the rest of the gang, presumably to brag somehow, and Helen eagerly shared her's with the rest of the class.

"142.2?", Danny stated in disbelief, "I thought it would say something like, [DOES NOT COMPUTE]!"

Helen angrily glared at him before her rage took control of her. She quickly snatched a tissue box off of the counter next to her and hurled it at him, hitting him in the face. "You do _not _wanna mess with me", she grinned. Once Helen's tests were finished, Connor went up. Connor's test results were by far the worst; not by the results, but by Connor screwing up the measurements and calculations.

"Okay son, please step onto this scale", Dr. Mikey requested. Connor _hopped _onto the scale, nearly breaking it. "Son, I said 'step' onto the scale, not 'hop' onto it", the doc sighed. Connor did it correctly the next attempt, and got his weight as 111.3. Next was a measurement of his blood pressure, which for him as well as the doctor was the worst part of the whole ordeal.

"Okay Connor, please lift up your left sleeve", said Dr. Mikey. Connor lifted his right arm sleeve. "No, I said your left sleeve, not your right one." Connor lifted up his left pant leg. "That's your leg, kid. I need your arm for the test."

"Connor, don't you know the difference between left and right?", Stephen blurted. "Ohhh, left!", Connor replied. Connor rolled up his left arm sleeve, and half of the class rolled their eyes. The doctor wrapped the pressure cuff around Connor's arm, and began compressing it.

At first, Connor was giggling and moving his arm, the latter of which the doctor requested he not do, but he lost his cool when he lost the feeling in his arm, and put on quite a show.

"Hey, Dr., why can't I feel my... oh, oh, OH! OH GORMAN! OH GORMAN! I CAN'T FEEL MY ARM! GET ME OUTTA THIS THING!", he screamed, violently thrashing around despite Dr. Mikey's attempts to calm him down and get him to stop shaking. His friends were crying laughing, but not at him; just on how he was spazzing out over the pressure cuff.

Unaware of the resulting reaction that followed, Dr. Mikey jokingly asked for a tranquilizer dart, which put Connor into sheer panic. The boy quickly ripped the cuff off of his arm and sprinted out of the room. Everybody in the room was speechless, but a minute or so later, Dr. Mikey got the class back on the right track.

"Okay, who's next?", the doctor asked.

"Uh, I'll go", Stephen replied.

After the boy's first tests (which did not include checking of blood pressure), the next test was testing his reflexes. "How are you gonna do that?", Stephen asked, "And what does that even mean?"

"This test will not hurt", the doctor assured, "And what it does is test how fast you react to things." Dr. Mikey pulled out a compact hammer. "What I'm going to do is tap you just in front of your knee, and you'll see. And again, it won't hurt."

The doctor tapped the hammer on the front of Stephen's knee.

"...OOOWWWW! THAT FREAKIN' HURTS! FREAKING LIAR! YOU SAID IT WASN'T GONNA HURT BUT IT HURTS LIKE CRAP!", Stephen yelled.

"It can't hurt that bad-"

"Yeah, it hurts that bad, believe it or not!"

"Steve, don't be such a wimp!", Danny remarked. "Dr. Mikey, lemme try that."

The doctor tapped Danny's knee with the hammer, and got the reflex he was aiming for, except it set off a chain reaction: Danny's leg shot out, kicking Helen's chair hard enough to send her flying out of it and onto the scale. Her weight combined with the way she crashed on the scale made it drop a lead weight on Abby's foot. Abby grabbed her foot in pain.

"Well, good news, your reflexes are working fine", said Dr. Mikey.

After the other kids finished their checkups, Dr. Mikey informed them that they were done and that it was time for lunch, and the kids were out the door in the blink of an eye.


	18. The Cooties

**Like "The Raid"'s plotline, this is another sort of "gender cold war", which would be very common/normal in that age/grade; certaintly was when I was in 4****th**** grade. Also, at the beginning there is a reference to the episode with the Future Fungus. Enjoy, and don't catch... cooties. **

** Nah, just joking. And one final disclaimer; this is not intended to be sexist or to encourage sexist activities or discrimination. **

It all started on Friday, where poor Jenny had caught a cold, and despite her mother informing her that going outside to play with the other children while she was sick was a bad idea, she still went ahead and did it.

She and Nick, who had started growing feelings for eachother, were having pleasant conversation when Jenny sneezed on her lap. "You feeling okay?", Nick asked. Jenny sniffed. "Yeah, I just have a cold."

"Oh, okay", Nick replied.

One of the kids in the Primeval Kids' class at school, T.J, was also at the park, and happened to notice Jenny when she sneezed. Jenny told Nick she was going to go on the swings with Sarah and Becker, and she ran over to the swing-set. T.J walked over to Nick. "Hey, Nick."

"Oh, hi T.J. How are you doin'?"

"Okay, but I just wanted to warn you about girls."

"What's wrong with girls? They're nice, cute, and there's nothing bad about 'em! Nothing."

"Unless you count... cooties."

Nick's eyes widened. "What?"

"Cooties. Every girl has 'em. And they're contagious, like chicken pox. You can't touch 'em, or you'll get cooties too."

"W-well what do they do? I mean, why are they so bad?"

"No boy who has caught the cooties has ever returned."

"From what?"

"Their bathtub. The only known way to cure cooties is if you fill your bathtub with oatmeal and sit in it for 10 minutes."

"That is the _most _ridiculous, non-logical thing I've ever heard!"

"Okay, fine, but don't come cryin' to me once you've got the cooties."

"Well how would you know if you caught 'em?"

"You'll know, believe me", T.J replied, before walking away. The other boys went up to Nick. "Was that T.J? What did he want?", Stephen asked.

"He was telling me some balogna about cooties- aaa... AAA-CHOO!", Nick sneezed. Suddenly he realized something: T.J's tale of the "cooties", the warning "You'll know when you have the cooties, believe me", his sudden sneeze, and being around Jenny all were correlated.

"OH GORMAN!", Nick yelled.

"What's wrong?", asked Becker.

"I-I-I think I might have _cooties_!"

Becker, Danny and Stephen gasped in horror, and Connor fainted.

"W-well how- what do I do?", Nick babbled.

"I don't know, but if you caught cooties from Jenny, then we could all catch it too!", said Danny.

"Let's book it!", Stephen shouted, and the boys ran back home as fast as they could.

…

Taking a portion of his allowance, Nick went down to the grocery store with Stephen and bought 14 dollar's worth of oatmeal.

"This doesn't look right", said Stephen.

"How so?"

"Well I mean, doesn't it seem sort of weird or suspicious that we're buying a cart full of oatmeal? Shouldn't we buy something else?"

Nick looked around before grabbing a piece of bubble gum and tossing it into the cart. "Problem solved."

"So how're you boys doing today?", the clerk kindly asked. "We're doing fine", said Nick.

"Okay, that's nice." The clerk began scanning the items. "Oatmeal... Oatmeal... Oatmeal... Oatmeal... Oatmeal... Oatme- Hey wait a minute!"

The two boys were silent.

"Now you two be careful with this bubble gum, okay? Don't go sticking it under no chairs or desks now."

"Yes sir."

"Okay, Oatmeal... Oatmeal... Oatmeal..."

…

After the checkout, Nick and Stephen brought the oatmeal back to Nick's residence. "Good luck, Nick! Hope it helps!", Stephen commented. "Thanks, Stephen!", Nick yelled back, waving at his friend before entering his house.

Nick walked into his bathroom and filled 2/3 of the bathtub with warm water. Once the water was in, Nick opened up all of the oatmeal cans and poured the oatmeal into the tub. Once the oatmeal was in, Nick shut the door, took off his clothing, and slid into the oatmeal-filled bathtub, praying that it would permanently cure him of the cooties.

5 minutes after entering the tub, Nick's mother knocked on the door. "Nick, honey? You there?"

"What is it, Mom?", he asked.

"The bathroom in my bedroom is out of towels. Can I come get one from here, or is it a bad time?"

"Nah, it's fine; I'm just in the tub."

"Why?"

"Just 'cause. You can come in."

His mother started opening the door and walking in. "Thank you honey... NICK! WHAT THE _HELL _ARE YOU DOING?", she shrieked.

"Tryin' to cure the cooties."

"_AND-AND YOU THINK BATHING IN OATMEAL IS GONNA CURE COOTIES?_?

"T.J Miller said it would."

Calming down, Nick's mother sat down next to the tub. "Cooties?", she asked.

"Yeah. I was talking with Jenny earlier, and she sneezed. Gave me the cooties. Thank Gorman for T.J telling me; otherwise I might've turned into a girl or something!"

"Son, cooties aren't real."

"Why?"

"Well I kiss you at bedtime and give you hugs every day. If I had cooties, then you would've become a girl when you were 2 years old!"

Nick laughed. "But Mom, Jenny sneezed on me. She's a girl. T.J told me girls carry cooties and can pass 'em to boys. She gave me cooties."

"Again, Nick, no she didn't. You have to be able to know when something is true or false. Like on those tests at school."

"I always just flip a coin on those. This is different."

"Well that explains the '30' on that Math quiz last Wednesday", his mother muttered. "But anyway, you need to understand that there are things that are real or true, and those that are false. Cooties is false. Trust me son."

"Okay, Mom, thanks. And I'm really sorry about the tub."

"It's okay, son. We all make mistakes. But while you're in here, you might as well take a bath, to clean the oatmeal off of you and the bathtub."

"'K. Will do, Mom."

His mother smiled, and left the room.

…

The rest of the boys were happy to see Nick, who had just finished bathing and came out to play. "Hey guys, we need to talk."

"What up, Cut?", Stephen asked.

"I don't think girls have cooties. It's not true."

"Well what makes you say that?"

"Our mothers. They're girls. They kiss us, hug us, all that stuff, and we never got cooties from them."

"_That's _because moms don't _have _cooties", T.J interjected, happening to show up during the discussion. "Grown-ups don't have anything. That's because they're grown up, and they're strong n' stuff. All I'm saying is that you turkeys should keep away from the girls. Matter of fact, here they come!", explained T.J, before dashing off to escape his own lie.

"Hi guys... what are you doing?", Abby asked to the boys (minus Nick), who had their hands cupped over their nose and mouth.

"D-don't come near us!", Danny pleaded.

"Why?", Helen boldly stated. "I come near whatever or whoever I want!"

"Yeah, and when you come near the ocean, the tide comes in!", Connor remarked. The boys chuckled, but Helen was not so amused. She grabbed a rock and chucked it at Connor, who fled like a wounded animal.

"Seriously though, why not?", Abby asked. At that moment, Jenny sneezed into her elbow.

"COOTIES!", Stephen screamed, and he, Becker and Danny turned and ran.

The girls had puzzled looks on their faces, as did Nick. "Why didn't you run?", Abby asked.

"Because cooties aren't real."

"Well, why do the other guys think so?"

"T.J Miller was tellin' them some stupid stuff about cooties and being contagious and turning you into a girl, so now they're scared of girls."

"Oh. Wait, I think I know how to convince them otherwise..."

Abby beckoned to Nick and the other girls to discuss her plan.

…

"...It was real cool of you to buy me ice-cream, Nick", said T.J.

"No problem. You wanna sit down on the bench?", Nick replied. T.J shrugged. "I guess so..."

T.J was unaware that Nick's offer to sit down on the bench was part of a plan to get the other boys to realize that there was no such thing as the cooties. Right behind the bench was a large bush, which Abby and Sarah were lying in wait in. A few minutes later, T.J and Nick had finished eating their ice-cream bars. The code phrase for springing the trap was "Let me throw your wrapper and stick away", and sure enough, Nick made the offer. Abby and Sarah sprung up, grabbing T.J's arms and holding him down to the bench. T.J panicked.

"Nick, help!", he wailed.

"Okay, but first, you help me."

"With what?"

…

"Fellas, T.J's got something to tell you", Nick announced to the other boys.

"Guys, I'm sorry. I was lying about the cooties. Nick was right. They're not real."

The other boys seemed to believe T.J, and nodded in response.

"Well, I'll see you guys at school. And girls, I'm sorry."

"It's okay", Abby assured him. "No hard feelings?"

"None", he smiled.


	19. Danny's New Job

** Another chapter based around an episode of the Fat Albert show, this one was fun to write for a couple of reasons. In addition, this also sees the return of one of the OCs, ice-cream shoppe owner Mr. Schatz.**

School was out for the week, and the Primeval kids were just lying around Abby's flat, bored out of their minds.

"We could go to the pool", Sarah suggested.

"I don't think so. It's still kind of cold", replied Connor.

"Well maybe we could go play video games?"

"Nah. I've beaten _Space Marines _like a bajillion times."

"Well there must be something we can do."

"I got it!", Abby piped up. "Why don't we build a golf course?"

"Abby, we can't build a golf course", Nick laughed. "Don't you know how big those things are?"

"Well not a real one", Abby explained. "A miniature-golf course." The other kids started nodding in agreement. "Alright then, we'll build a golf course", Becker declared. "Hey Danny, I got some clubs and golfballs at my house. Come with me and we'll go get them!"

On the way to Becker's place, Danny spotted something interesting. "Hey Becks! Look!", Danny exclaimed.

"What is it?"

"It's Mr. Schatz's Ice-Cream Parlor. He's hiring! And I think I'll go apply for the job right now." Danny started walking, but Becker stopped him. "Well that's cool that you're going to apply for the job, but don't you think you should maybe change your clothes? I mean, you wanna look nice and neat when you apply for a job, right?"

"You're right. Becks, you go get the balls and clubs, and I'll catch up with you later."

…

Sometime later, the rest of the kids were working on the golf course, which was being built in Helen's backyard. The kids had made challenging and creative holes, such as one where you have to hit the ball across a pool of water , and get it to the hole on the other side by bouncing it off of toy dinosaurs and rocks. The kids were busy creating and testing the holes when Danny showed up, wearing nice clothing with a smile on his face.

"Did you get it?", Becker asked.

"Get what?", said Stephen.

"The job. Did you get it?"

"Yep! My first shift starts in an hour."

"What did you get a job as? Where'd you get it?", Nick asked.

"Mr. Schatz's Ice-Cream Parlor. Hey, maybe you guys should swing by in a little bit!"

"Sure!"

"Definitely!"

"Thanks, Danny!"

…

An hour later, Danny was at Mr. Schatz's, receiving a walkthrough on how to properly make a milkshake. Danny was a fast learner, which Mr. Schatz praised him on. "Hey Danny, I have to go run some errands. Could you look after the shop for me while I'm gone?"

"Yes Sir!", Danny eagerly replied.

"You know what to do if we have customers. And keep an eye on Dippin' Dots. That little corgi would eat all my ice-cream if I let her!" Danny laughed, and looked down at the shop's corgi puppy. The corgi happily barked.

"Alright Danny, I'll see you in an hour or so."

About ten minutes after Mr. Schatz had left, Danny's friends, true to their words, walked into the shop. "Hey guys! How's the course coming along?", said Danny.

"Great, but we're exhausted. And there wouldn't be a better place to go than where our good buddy Danny works, right?"

"You know it. What can I get for y'all?"

"I'll have a hot-fudge sundae!"

"Large strawberry milkshake!"

"Banana split!"

…

After they ordered and eaten their ice-cream, the kids were exhausted and tired, their bellies filled with ice-cream and frozen yogurt.

"Man", Helen remarked, patting her distended stomach, "I think if I ate anymore ice-cream, my stomach would freeze solid!"

"Yeah! Then it would match your head!", Becker remarked. The kids laughed, but Helen shot a glare at Becker. At that moment, Connor burped. Not loudly, but still audible.

"Connor!", Abby exclaimed.

"'Scuse me", he sighed in embarrassment.

"No, I mean that was weak. Now listen to this:".

Abby took another large sip of her rootbeer-float. *URRRRRPPPPPPPP!*. The boys clapped their hands before everyone began laughing.

"Are we done here?", Danny asked.

"Yessiree", Nick replied.

"Okay, so Abby's rootbeer-float is a dollar and ten cents..."

"WAIT- you mean we have to _pay _for this?", Stephen exclaimed.

"Look, I'm sorry guys. It's just that this is my job."

"HERE!", Stephen rudely replied, slamming his money owed down on the counter, "TAKE your frickin' money, Mr. Krabs!"

Most of the other kids acted the same way as Stephen, except Helen. "*HIC* That was dee-licious! Thanks Danny!", she praised, before being grabbed by the collar of her jacket and pulled out with the rest of the kids.

Danny seemed confused and hurt. Becker had stayed behind to talk to Danny. "Hey Danny, I know that they all weren't acting too nice, but you did your job. That's what you're supposed to do, and that's what you get paid for."

"I know, Becker, but I would rather have the other guys like me."

"Okay. Well, I'm heading home because I have chores to do, and thanks again for the ice-cream."

"Thanks. See you, man."

…

The next day, the rest of the Primeval kids were at their golf course, still working and playing. When Danny showed up, however, that all changed.

"Don't look at him, maybe he'll go away", Stephen remarked.

"Will you guys knock it off?", Becker asked.

"Well too bad that you want me to go away, because I was gonna offer you guys some _free _ice-cream!"

The kids perked up at the sound of free ice-cream. "Danny, ol' buddy; where have you been?", Stephen warmly stated.

"What? Danny, did Mr. Schatz say you could do this?", asked Becker.

"Well, um, yeah", Danny bluffed.

The kids went back down to the parlor, and stuffed themselves with ice-cream for the second time in 24 hours.

…

"Uh, Danny, could you please come here a second?", Mr. Schatz asked the next morning. Danny walked over to the trashcan, where he spotted the empty tub of ice-cream he had used for his friends that previous afternoon. "Danny, did we have more customers last night? How come this ice-cream container is empty here on the floor?"

"Uh, um, well maybe Dippin' Dots got into it!", Danny exclaimed. The corgi glared at him.

"Well, okay..."

Later on, Danny rejoined Becker and the rest of the gang at the golf course. "Guys, I can't give you anymore free ice-cream", said Danny.

"Why not?", asked Abby.

"Because this morning, Mr. Schatz found the empty thing of ice-cream, and I nearly got in trouble for it."

"So you lied to Mr. Schatz? Why would you do that?", Becker asked.

"I didn't lie. It's just a job benefit", Danny tried to explain.

"No, Danny, it is _stealing_."

"Well he didn't find out."

"Be that as it may, how can you feel good about that? You'll never be able to look him in the eye."

Danny sighed. "I guess you're right. I'll go tell him the truth-"

"No! Don't!", Stephen exclaimed. "If you do that, then he'll get fired, and that means no more ice-cream! Game over, man! Game over!"

"Well, Stephen, if you guys weren't tryin' to get Danny to give you free ice-cream, he wouldn't be in this mess! Look, Danny, how about you just think about it?"

…

On his way to work, Danny had been debating whether he should tell Mr. Schatz the truth or keep silent. He finally decided to tell the truth.

"Mr. Schatz, sir?"

"What is it, Danny?"

"About that tub of ice-cream, Dippin' Dots didn't eat it. My friends did. They were pushing me to treat them, and I did. I'm really, really sorry, sir."

"Well, to be honest, I didn't believe that Dippin' Dots ate it anyway. I just was quiet because I thought you were going to tell the truth. But you're such a good worker, heck, why would I even consider firing you? You can treat your friends, but one more thing: no more lying."

"Yes Sir!", Danny smiled. Becker was right. Usually telling the truth would still result in a kid getting into trouble, but there were times where it definitely payed to tell the truth.


	20. Fat Eric

**Happy Valentine's Day! I know it's late, but a lot of crazy stuff has prevented me from submitting this. This chapter was SO fun to write; it had humor left-and-right as well as romance. This also contains the word "bitch" once, but only as part of literal humor.**

**One last thing: Yes, I realize that "Fat Eric" is basically Fat Albert, but Eric was essentially Fat Albert in my school, making crap fall over when he stormed into class, nearly breaking the bones in my right foot, etc. So enjoy, Happy Valentine's Day, sleep tight, and don't let the fat boy bite!**

It was the day before Valentine's Day at Anomaly Elementary School, and as usual, there was love in the air and in the classrooms: children admitting their feelings towards eachother, passing valentines, flowers and boxes of chocolate around. But for some reason, Danny seemed somewhat unhappy.

"What's wrong, Danny?", Becker asked.

Danny sighed. "I was just thinking about how you and the rest of the guys have girlfriends: You got Sarah, Nick's got Jenny, Connor's got Abby... I mean, I just feel so lonely. Feel like a sore thumb."

"Hey cheer up, pal. You'll find a girlfriend. You're a great dude. You're nice, funny, good at sports... Tell you what: I'll help you find a girlfriend."

Danny smiled. "Thanks, Becks."

"Anytime, anywhere."

Some time later, Danny and Becker were doing one of the crafts to make a Valentine's Day present for their parents and discussing some potential candidates for girlfriends.

"How about Jess?", Becker suggested.

"She's nice and all, but she's sort of young for me, if you know what I mean."

"Okay. Um, oh! How about Caroline? Caroline Steel?"

"She's sorta a.. a female dog...", Danny mumbled. Becker smiled in amusement, mainly because it was true; Caroline was a bitch.

"Alright, how about Melissa?"

Danny's eyes opened up. "Melissa? You mean like the cute daughter of Mr. Schatz?"

"That's the one", Becker confirmed. "Lunch is in a couple of minutes. Ask her to sit with you at one of the other tables near ours."

"I don't think I can do it", Danny stuttered. "I'm too nervous."

"Well at least try. You have enough faith in yourself to try, right?"

"Yeah. Yeah..."

…

"Hi Melissa", said Danny. Melissa turned around and smiled.

"Danny, right?"

"That's the name; humor's my game."

"Nice to meet you."

"Right back atcha", Danny grinned. "Listen, Melissa, would you like to sit with-"

Suddenly the floor shook slightly. 3 seconds later, it shook again, slightly stronger.

"What the heck...?", Danny commented. Then, all the kids hear someone shout:

"HEY, HEY, HEY!"

"Can only be one thing...", Becker stated.

"...Which would be?", Helen asked.

"...Fat Eric..."

Fat Eric entered the cafeteria, making the ground shake-*FWOOM!*-, lunchboxes falling over-*FWOOM!*, kids tightly holding onto the table to avoid falling out of their seats-*FWOOM!*

"HEY, HEY, HEY! It's Faaaat Eric!", Eric declared. "And I'm gonna-"

Suddenly he got hit in the side of the neck by a pudding cup somebody had thrown at him. "OWWW!", he screeched. "**DON'T FRICKIN' DO THAT! I'M FRICKIN' SERIOUS! FRICKIN' BUTTHOLE! I'M GONNA FRICKIN' KICK YOUR BUTT! YOU MOTHER-FINKIN' TURKEY!**"

It was no surprise that everybody thought Fat Eric raging was the funniest thing in the world.

After "cooling down", Fat Eric continued through the cafeteria, passing by Jess, Abby, her brother Jack and Jenny. "Sayyy...", Jess remarked, making a witty observation at Eric's light blue shirt, "Wasn't he wearing that shirt the day before, and the day before that, and the day before that, and the day before that...?" Abby, Jack and Jenny fell apart laughing.

Fat Eric made his way over to Melissa, pushing Danny out of the way. "Hey, Hey, Hey, Melissa, do you wanna-"

Suddenly an announcement came over the intercom. "Melissa Schatz to the front office, please. Melissa's father is here to pick her up."

"Oh, I forgot! I have a dentist appointment! Well, I gotta go. Nice talking with you Danny. Maybe we can talk tomorrow?"

"Sure!"

Melissa walked out of the cafeteria, and the second she was out of sight, Fat Eric threatened Danny.

"Hey, Hey, Hey. Stay away from Melissa. I'm gonna ask her out."

The second Eric had made his point to a terrified Danny, he walked over to Helen, trying to look "cool".

"Hey, Hey, Hey, Helen, what say you n' me go get some ice-cream today?"

Helen rolled her eyes. "Buzz off, deadbeat."

"Playin' hard-to-get. I like 'dat."

"I wasn't even- I don't-". Before Helen could finish, Fat Eric thundered out of the cafeteria.

"FATTY!", Jack blurted out once Fat Eric was gone.

"Yes Jack. Fatty", Abby replied.

…

"I-I just can't", Danny sighed. "There is no way I can compete against Fat Eric. No way. Yeah, I know Melissa doesn't really like him, but he can and will do everything to prevent me from asking her out."

"Well he is sort of a bully", Stephen remarked.

"I know, but that's the problem. Melissa doesn't like him, so he's trying to prevent me from getting to know Melissa. If there was some way to stop him..."

"There is", Helen interrupted, having just arrived. "Danny, you know what you need to do? You need to challenge that lame tub of lard to a fight. If you win, Eric'll surely back off!"

"You're right, Helen! Thanks!"

"Anytime, anywhere."

…

The next day was Valentine's Day, and at this point, Danny had finally gotten the courage to talk to Melissa. "Hey Melissa, would you like to, to um, go on a d-date with me?", Danny stuttered.

Melissa smiled. "That's so sweet of you! I'd love to..."

"What?"

Danny turned around and saw Fat Eric a couple of feet behind him. "WHAAAATTTTT!", he shrieked. "WHAAAATTTTT? OH MY GOD!"

Although scared, Danny remained calm. "Yeah, I asked her out. What about it? Tell you what; I challenge you to a fight. If I win, Melissa stays with me, but if I lose, she's with you."

"Deal, midget. At recess. Today. I'm 250 pounds an' I'm proud of it!", Fat Eric yelled before he thundered off.

"250?", Jess commented, "I thought he'd be at least 2,000!". Abby and Helen laughed.

…

Danny was shivering in fear when recess rolled around. All of the kids were in the bleachers, and sure enough, Danny started to feel the earth quake.

"HEY, HEY, HEY!"

Fat Eric stepped onto the basketball court, and Danny put up his fists. The Primeval kids cheered for their friend as the fight began.

The two kids were standing facing eachother, fists up. Danny made the first move by staring down at Eric's leg. Fat Eric looked as well to see what Danny was staring at, and that's when Danny kicked him between the legs. Eric attempted to punch Danny, but Danny dodged Fat Eric's fist, before making an attempt himself. Eric blocked it and punched Danny in the stomach, knocking him down.

After he got back up. Danny made the mistake of charging his fat opponent straight-on, and Eric grabbed him and sent him skidding. Fat Eric kept jumping up and down, making the ground shake and therefore making it impossible for Danny to regain his footing.

The following event was a serious turning point in the fight. Eric, all self-confident and believing that he was cool, once again tried to flirt with Helen. "Hey, Hey, Hey. I'm Fat Eric, and if you was my girlfriend, you could be Fat Helen-"

The moment he said that, something inside Helen snapped, and the others didn't blame her. Helen twitched repeatedly before ripping her coat off, and marching straight into the fight. Without mercy, Helen repeatedly punched and kicked Fat Eric, who squealed like a pig. Thanks to Helen, Danny was able to get back up and punch Eric, knocking him onto the ground. The force was enough to knock all the kids out of their seats.

"I am Helen. You do not wanna mess with me", Helen boasted.

Danny walked over to Melissa. "You still wanna-"

"Yes."

Danny smiled. Holding his new girlfriend's hand, they happily walked off, the rest of the Primeval kids cheering for his victory.


	21. Night at the Museum Part 1

**This chapter was interesting to write, because in addition to it being similar to the _Night at the Museum franchise_, it is also based off of something Connor says in Episode 3:1 on _Primeval _itself. For those who did not see the episode, the team (this episode was also the first appearance of Captain Becker and Sarah Page) was tracking a prehistoric crocodile-thing at a museum, and as they searched the museum at night, Connor was talking about how at one point in his childhood, he used to believe that the museum exhibits came to life each night, so he stayed in the museum when it closed for the day to see what happened, and... I think I'm just gonna resume the story. Enjoy and comment!**

"...And this, children, is an ancient hieroglyph", the Primeval kids' guide explained. Sarah was all giddy and excited due to the fact that she had an obsession and passion of Ancient Egypt, and that happened to be the exhibit area that the class was in.

"What's this supposed to mean?", Abby asked, pointing at the hieroglyph. "Looks like my little brother's handwriting!"

"I know what it means!", Connor exclaimed. Everyone was shocked, as Connor had even made a "D-" on a history quiz. "Okayyy... let's see. The Egyptians find a T. Rex frozen in ice and try to drag it back, but then the sun melts the ice and the T. Rex gets loose and starts eatin' people. The Egypt guys ask Herobrine for help-"

"_Herobrine_?", Sarah remarked in shock.

"Yeah, Herobrine. Anyways, they get his help and they shoot up the dinosaur-"

"They didn't have guns...", the tour guide stuttered.

"...And the pig queen's like, 'Oh thank you! Thank you, Herobrine!', and then he becomes their god and then they lived happily ever after."

The class was speechless.

"Kid, none, and I mean _none _of what you just said is correct", said the guide.

"Noodles!", Connor exclaimed.

"Here, I'll read it", Sarah declared. "The Egyptians build a sun-cage out of magnetite to try to summon their god, but it opened some type of portal, and some sort of reptile beast came through, maybe from the Underworld, but the Egyptians believed it was their god, and kneeled before it and provided sacrifices to appease it."

The guide clapped her hands. "Well that was a hell of a lot better than what your pal just said, but I'm not sure if you're completely right."

"What do you mean?", Sarah asked.

"Well even the archaeologists and expert scientists that recovered that tablet don't fully understand what it means. Maybe when you grow up, you could get a job here and see if you could find out."

Sarah smiled. "I definitely will!"

As the class continued through the museum, Connor and Abby were chatting.

"Hey, Abby, do you ever wonder if the exhibits, y'now..."

"What?"

"...Come to life at night?"

Abby was silent for a moment, then burst into hysterics. She dropped to the ground laughing, and the class turned around to see what the commotion was about.

"Hey stop laughing! I'm serious!", Connor whined. Abby was still laughing uncontrollably.

"Well you know what? I think I'm just gonna stay here tonight and see if they **do** come to life!", Connor boldly declared once the rest of the kids and the guide were out of sight.

Abby stopped laughing. "You can't be serious."

"I am. But I'll need your help."

"With what?"

"Well today's Friday, right? Well I need you to tell my mother I'm gonna be sleeping over at your house tonight. That way, she won't know I'm here."

"Alright, but you wanna make a deal?"

"Sure. I'll say what I want, and you say what you want", stated Connor. "If I win, I'll win a dollar."

"Deal. And if I win, you know that king-size 'Oh-Fudge!' bar you got last week?"

"Yeah?"

"If I win, it'll be in my stomach, not yours."

Connor seemed uneasy about giving up his "Oh-Fudge!" bar; it cost him $1.50, and it was the favorite candy of the majority of the Primeval kids, with the exception of Jenny and Sarah, who preferred Skittles, but he wasn't going to be a chicken. "Deal."

…

Several hours later, the field trip as well as the school day had ended, and Connor's plan was about to begin. He had brought some soda pop and a granola bar to keep himself fed, a flashlight, batteries, and a walkie-talkie to radio in Abby and stay in touch with her. Once the museum had closed and all of the staff had left, he contacted Abby.

"Abby, this is Connor. I'm in."

"Wicked. Now go through the museum, and see if anything comes to life and tries to kill you."

"Thanks. That's reassuring", Connor sarcastically replied.

Connor wandered through the dark museum, carefully scanning each exhibit with the flashlight for anything that looked scary or living or both. The first destination on his sweep, the dinosaur and fossil halls, were safe, so he then proceeded to the place he was very uneasy about: the Ancient Egypt area that his class had visited about 10 hours ago. Connor slowly scanned for glowing red eyes, mummies (his greatest fear) and monsters from the Underworld, but to his surprise, there was nothing scary.

Several hours later, Connor was semi-tired, but he was tenacious. So far, in addition to the dinosaurs and Ancient Egypt, he had scanned the aerodynamics, modern warfare, and Civil War exhibits, and he moved on towards the entomology room.

Not long after entering the entomology room, Connor finally found what he was looking for, or to be more specific, it found him. Although it was only in Connor's imagination due to him being restless, it still scared him to death. Connor turned around and saw an enormous, living tarantula, at least 4 meters long, standing a few feet behind him. Connor shrieked in fear and quickly dashed past the spider, which gave pursuit.

Connor took a shortcut through the aerodynamics exhibit to the Ancient Egypt exhibit, the spider closely following him. Connor quickly spotted the bathroom, and ran as fast as he could into it, slamming the door shut behind him. The tarantula banged against the door, but Connor was out of reach, which was good news for him. The bad news was that meant that Connor was trapped in the restroom by a gigantic spider.

After he caught his breath, Connor pulled out the walkie-talkie and radioed Abby. "ABBY! PLEASE! ABBY! S.O.S! MAYDAY! BLACKHAWK DOWN!"

…

Unknown to Connor, Abby couldn't hear him because she was listening to unusually loud music through headphones while reading a comic book.

…

Connor was completely terrified. He was alone, trapped in a large, empty museum in the dark by a huge tarantula, and now he couldn't even call for backup. The worst part was that he wasn't wearing a watch, so he had no clue what time it was.

Approximately an hour or two later, Connor had been singing every song he knew to try to either keep himself occupied or make the time pass faster. At that point, he realized that there was a chance the spider had gotten bored or tired of waiting... or it was hiding somewhere, planning to ambush him. Wielding his flashlight in both hands like a sword or lightsaber, Connor s...l...o...w...l...y... crept out of the bathroom, constantly looking left and right for anything "spidery". It was at this point that he suddenly collapsed in exhaustion.

…

Connor woke up to see a man next to him. "You okay, young man?", the man asked. "You were asleep on the floor in the Ancient Egypt exhibit."

"Uhggg... Where am I?", Connor groaned.

"You're in the museum still. You're in our lounge. I came to work and I found you lying there on the ground. You okay?"

"Yeah, yeah I guess so... Is the spider gone?"

"Spider?"

"Yeah, I got chased by this ginormous spider, like twice the size of a T. Rex."

"Well that was probably just a figment of your imagination, probably because you were tired. A boy your age needs plenty of sleep at night. But can I ask you why you were in the museum?", the man questioned.

"I'm sorry, sir. I wasn't trying to steal or nothing. I just made a bet with my friend, that, if the museum exhibits come to life at night, she'd owe me a dollar, but if they don't, I have to give her my king-size "Oh-Fudge!" bar. So it looks like I'm gonna have to", Connor sighed. "I'm not in trouble, right?"

"Nope. Just don't repeat this, please."

"Believe me sir, after what happened, I'm definitely not going to!"

Connor and the museum worker chuckled.

…

"*URP!* 'Scuse me", Abby blushed. "Good Gorman, now** that **was good fudge!"

"Yeah", Connor sighed. "Sure would've been."

Abby sat down to comfort her friend. "Hey, don't feel glum, Connor. Here, I want you to take this." Abby handed Connor a dollar. "I'm sorry I laughed at you yesterday."

Connor smiled. "It's okay, Abby. And a dollar doesn't mean nearly as much to me as you do."

Both friends smiled, before kissing eachother on the lips and tightly hugging.


	22. Night at the Museum Part 2

**Now _this _part... While I was writing the previous chapter, an idea entered my head: what if there was sort of like an exaggerated fantasy chapter, which would be appropriate for Connor because of his lack of sleep during his ordeal in the museum. And as for the present events in the story, those will be in italics, while the dream story will just be normal. Please enjoy, and by the way, there are some references to movies and _Minecraft_ in here, an' if you find 'em, you get an "Oh-Fudge!" bar!**

_Connor had one hell of a night at the museum, an event which left him extremely tired. He had went to take a nap at about 11 A.M that Saturday, but as a side effect of his ordeal, he was having very, very odd dreams..._

…

"Ugh, where... what?", Connor mumbled. He found himself back at the museum, in the exact spot where he passed out on the floor. Suddenly he looked forward and screamed, as the tarantula that had been hunting him through the museum had reappeared in front of him. Connor covered his eyes, quivering in fear, but when the spider bit him, the result was not what he expected. Instead of biting a hole through his face or poisoning him with a lethal venom, the spider's bite had actually shrunk him down to an inch in size. The tiny Connor looked up, and the spider had disappeared.

"Man, what happened?", Connor asked in confusion and disbelief. "How could... how did that happen? This isn't possible. Well, on the bright side, at least I'll be able to drive my toy Space Marine dropship when I get home."

Suddenly a portal that looked like a ball of light with shards and fragments of floating glass and mirrors (aka anomaly, but a dream version) randomly opened in front of him. Connor stepped through it, and suddenly fell onto something flat and brown on the other side.

"Where am I?", said Connor. Looking around, he saw Abby, fairly close to him. "Oh thank Gorman! Abby, I- wait a minute...", Connor paused. At first he believed Abby was approaching him, but then realized that what he was sitting on was actually approaching Abby.

Approaching her mouth.

Connor wiped his finger on the surface he was sitting on and licked it. "Oh-Fudge!", he murmured. Looking back, he put two-and-two together and realized that Abby was about to eat the fudge, and he was on it.

"Oh-Fudge! OH-FUDGE! Abby! Abby, stop! ABBY! HEY, HEY- ABBY! NO! NO! NO!", Connor shouted as he got closer and closer to his best friend's maw. Connor and the piece of fudge entered Abby's mouth, and as Abby chewed the fudge, which Connor had let go of, Connor felt as if he was riding a bull that was shaking him around and trying to buck him off. Once Abby had chewed up the fudge, she gulped and swallowed. Connor desperately tried to hold on, but to no avail, as he and a large amount of chewed-up, sticky fudge slid down Abby's throat into her stomach. Abby, the whole time, was completely unaware that in addition to some fudge, she had just eaten her closest friend.

…

"So, what do you do for fun?", a chocolate-covered grasshopper asked to the other being next to it in Abby's belly.

"...SSSSS...", the thing replied.

"That's your answer for everything, isn't...". The grasshopper was cut off by the faint sound of yelling, which became louder and louder until Connor and the fudge dropped into Abby's gut. Connor stood back up and shook off. "Aww, gross!", he whined. Connor turned around and screamed. The thing that the grasshopper was talking to was a creeper, the most loathed and feared monster in _Minecraft_. Connor quickly backed up in fear.

"What's wrong?", the grasshopper, a wildly-obvious extrovert, asked.

"C-C-Creeper...", Connor stuttered.

"Oh, he doesn't bite... or in this case, blow up", the grasshopper explained.

"W-well why is he here? Why are you here? Why are you talking? And HOW IS THIS ALL EVEN HAPPENING!", Connor screamed in fear and confusion.

The creeper and the grasshopper looked at each other, then looked back at the panicked Connor. "Well I don't know why he's here; probably because he spawns in dark and slimy places and this is as dark and slimy as it gets... I'm here because at one of those stupid fancy restaurants they serve chocolate-covered grasshoppers... I'm talking because this is a dream-"

"Wait- that means all I have to do is wake up?", Connor asked.

"Well, technically, yes, but officially, no."

"Son of a gun. Well, how do we get out of here? I don't wanna be a 'chocolate-covered Connor'; I just wanna get home!"

"Well unless you want to take the rear exit, there's no way out. Welcome to Hell, friend!", the grasshopper smiled.

Connor nearly threw up at the thought of the first option. "W-well there must be some other way! Some way to get back up the way we came?"

"Well if there's a way, I sure don't know. Sorry kiddo."

Connor turned and noticed that the creeper had suddenly changed into Arabic attire; a turban, robes, an AK-47, you get the idea...

"Hey creeps, what're ya doin' buddy?", the grasshopper asked. The creeper turned to face the grasshopper. "Madonna heski malest homo siphoda", the creeper replied.

"Wait, what did he say?", Connor asked. The grasshopper shrugged.

"Well creeper, we don't know what you said, but go ahead and do it!", said the grasshopper.

The creeper backed up against the stomach walls, and seemed to be preparing to charge straight into the digestive juices. "ALLAHU AKBAR!", the creeper shouted, before charging straight into the juices, out of sight. Apparently the creeper exploded, because bubbles started rising to the surface. Lots of bubbles. Large ones that were popping.

"Oh, I get it!", the grasshopper exclaimed.

"Hands in the air!", Connor announced.

…

Abby had reached the park at this point, but she suddenly came to a stop. She felt her stomach rumbling, gas levels building up, and finally belched, launching Connor and the grasshopper onto the bench near her.

"Wow, that was AWESOME!", the grasshopper exclaimed. "Nice meeting you, kid! Hope I can help you at some other time!"

"Thanks. You too", Connor smiled, and the grasshopper hopped down the walkway, but then a new threat emerged. As the grasshopper ran off, it got squashed by a shoe. Looking up, Connor identified it as Stephen's, and Stephen was approaching him. Connor started running, but (because every shrinking story has this sooner or later) got caught by a piece of gum. Connor tried to pull himself out, but it was too late: Stephen's foot came down and flattened him like the grasshopper.

Connor's vision faded to blackness, and then he found himself falling through a long tunnel filled with spectacular, beautiful, exotic lights and colors. As he was falling, he was watching what appeared to be a movie... of his future. Connor watched the sped-up movie go through numerous events in his future, such as him graduating highschool, buying a car, but the longest event was a long story involving portals similar to the one at the beginning of his dream, and creatures from the far future and prehistoric ages coming through, and himself working to prevent the occurrence of the portals, the anomalies, alongside his close childhood friends: Nick, Jenny, Abby, Stephen, Sarah, Danny, Jess and Becker, and also noticed that Helen was not with them, possibly plotting against them, but the film did not reveal why. He saw numerous other things, but near the end, when something potentially interesting involving him and Abby was about to be revealed, his vision faded out again.

…

_When Connor came to, he was back in his room, completely rested, and surprisingly, only an hour had gone by. For whatever reason, he also couldn't remember what he had seen about his future, but he decided it was best to enjoy the present and worry about the future when it occurred._


	23. Who Dares Wins, Who Farts Loses

**This intro will be a bit longer than usual. Not because of anything severely inappropriate, but because A: I'm letting you know what to expect in this chapter, B: I'm apologizing for any feelings of disgust you may have by the end, and C: I'm thanking my readers for reading. It means a lot to me, and please review/comment! I love feedback (except for trolling) and being able to talk with you guys, know what you'd like to see.**

** Anyway, this is basically about... well, have you had anything embarrassing, like, extremely embarrassing happen to you, such as maybe goofing up during a game of football or soccer and losing the game, tripping while walking to the lunch table in the cafeteria, sending your food flying into the air, or perhaps passing gas during art class, except it was audible? Those are all embarrassing as hell, but the latter is the central part in this little thing. Now before I say who it happens to, let me remind/hint you on two things: 1, is that the reason everything like this happens to the girls is because, in my opinion, it presents girls as being just as human as boys, who on TV, have these sorts of things happen to them 24/7, and 2, because when the hit sci-fi movie **_**Alien **_**was released, it completely changed the science-fiction genre. Usually movies feature a muscular male hero with a five o'clock shadow and a screaming Southern belle, but in **_**Alien**_**, it was the other way around****.**

** Last, (and this is your "hint") I don't hate Abby; I love her. She is a great character, and the only reason I chose her for this misfortune is because I'm sort of going through the different characters. Like how Helen and Danny were central to "The Race" and "Fat Eric"s' plots, how Nick and Jenny were in "Xenomorphobia" and "The Cooties"s'; etc.**

** And as for the subject matter, I am not going to attempt onomatopoeia for fart sounds, because either I do it wrong and someone yells at me, or I do it right and end up grossing everyone out, myself included. **

"Blecgh, what _is_ this?", Abby asked, poking at her dinner with her fork.

"It's bean casserole, honey. Eat it", her mother admonished.

"Well it looks, feels and smells weird", Abby griped. "Why doesn't Jack have to eat this?"

"Jack's still very young, Abby. But he'll be eating like a big boy soon", Abby's mother replied. Jack's eyes widened with fear.

"W-well don't we have some bread or something else I can eat? Something that won't make me barf?", asked Abby.

"No honey, I'm going to the grocery store tomorrow, and you still need to eat your dinner. It's good for you."

"Fine..."

…

"Mmmm! Oh my goodness, this is so good!", Abby exclaimed a few minutes later, her mouth full.

"Please don't talk with your mouth full. But I'm glad you like it", her mother replied.

"Can I have some more?"

"You sure can!"

"Thanks, Mom! This stuff is really good!"

"Thank you", her mother smiled.

…

The next day, the Primeval kids were at school, working on a group social-studies project. In addition to the projects being fun in general, the kids were also allowed to talk, which obviously was what they were doing.

"...Yeah, that must've really hurt, Stephen", said Nick. Stephen had just finished a pity story involving him getting stung by a hornet for no reason, despite the fact that he had been lobbing rocks at the hornet's nest.

"Man, last night's dinner was the bomb!", Abby commented.

"What did you have?", Jenny asked.

"Bean casserole."

The kids in Abby's group were surprised. "Bean casserole?", Stephen asked.

"Yeah, what about it? It was awesome!", Abby replied.

"Well, doesn't- don't beans give you-"

"Gas?", a third voice interjected. The kids turned to see their classmate T.J sitting on one of the desks next to them. Nick groaned. "What do you want this time, T.J?"

"Nothing, nothing. Just wanted to warn you. My dad gave our dog, Bo some bean casserole, and he was fartin' for like 4 hours."

Abby rolled her eyes. "I'm not a dog. You know that, right, or are we going to have to slowly explain it to you?"

"No. I get that. I'm just warnin' you, Abby, your butt is now a ticking time bomb." T.J walked back over to his group, another lie well-told. Or so the kids thought.

Abby seemed frozen after T.J had talked to the group, but when Nick started chiding Stephen for drawing a mustache and tattoos on their poster's picture of Abraham Lincoln, that brought her back.

…

About an hour later, the class had Art Class, and the kids were drawing. The majority of the Primeval kids were talented artists, save for Stephen, who said art sucked because it was "useless". He claimed it was so because you couldn't ride a statue of a horse or eat a painting of fruit. But as for the art, Connor was drawing a _Aliens: Space Marines _cartoon, Nick and Helen, who were the best artists in the class, were drawing amazingly-detailed sketches of dinosaurs and prehistoric creatures, Stephen was drawing a colorful, 3-D picture of the words "ART SUCKS", Sarah and Jenny were drawing and coloring flowers and butterflies, and Becker was drawing detailed, accurate renders of guns and firearms. Abby was drawing various things, such as dogs, trees and cars, but her mind was more set on her insides, which were feeling unusual, almost unstable. She ruled out being hungry or having to go to the bathroom, and she knew that only left one option. At that point, she realized that for once, T.J was right about something, but she was determined to not let it happen.

About ten minutes later, Abby had been fighting against her internals, but at that point, she felt that if she held it in any longer, she would explode with the force of a thermonuclear weapon. She realized that although the ceiling would fall, her best hope was to try to pull it off as an S.B.D, so although it would or would not be evident, at least it couldn't be traced to her. Eyes closed, fingers crossed, Abby let go of the tension in her rear muscles, and... well you can guess what happened following that. Unfortunately, although it was not too, too loud (Compared to Fat Eric's, it would be a whisper, a silent gust of wind), it was still audible, and the class bully, a jerk named Caleb who enjoyed humiliating other people, stood up, pointed and yelled:

"ABBY FARTED!"

Abby's face instantly turned red as the jerk Caleb and his equally annoying friends burst into laughter, Fat Eric chuckled and T.J giggled. Abby's friends didn't seem too disturbed, so they didn't laugh; however they did keep an eye on Abby. Abby realized that if she didn't remove herself from the room and the situation quickly, she might literally die of embarrassment or cry, and from there, she would probably beat the living hell out of Caleb, so she instantly marched out of the room.

Caleb and his gang continued cackling at Abby's accident, saying they should call her the "Amazing Fart Girl", when Connor snapped. Connor started to get up, but Becker tried to stop him. "Connor..."

"Let... go... of me...", Connor growled through clenched teeth.

Becker released his grip, and Connor stormed over to Caleb and punched him in the face. Everyone looked up in surprise, and Connor grabbed Caleb by the cuff of his shirt. "Now you apologize to Abby right now, or I grease you right now, you little rat-fink son of a gun!", Connor snarled at the bully.

"Connor, go to the principal's office!", the teacher ordered.

Connor dropped Caleb. "Good", he fearlessly replied, walking out the door.

…

Although Connor was confident in the fact that he did the right thing by standing up for his best friend, he was a bit nervous about going to the principal's office, for he had never met the principal. Connor was scared that the principal was going to be an evil, soulless, muscular, 7-foot tall drill sergeant that would snap his spine, but when he finally reached the office, he actually was elated to see the principal, because it was a familiar face.

Mr. Lester, the kids' awesome preschool teacher.

"MR. LESTER!", Connor cried. "I MISSED YOU, SIR!"

"Well I did as well. What sort of trouble you been causing this year?"

"Lots, Mr. Lester. Lots," Connor grinned.

Lester smiled. "Well why are you here, other than a happy little reunion?"

"I beat up Caleb because he was making fun of Abby."

"Oh yeah, that little piece of... Well what did he do?", Lester asked.

"Will you promise not to tell anybody?", Connor requested.

"Sure."

"Abby, erm, '_cut the cheese_' in art class today, and Caleb started harassing her for it."

"Oh, well I'm sorry to hear that. I'm sorry for Abby."

"Thank you, Mr. Lester, I am too. I don't know where she went, though."

"Went?"

"Yes, Sir. She ran out of the classroom and I don't know where she went."

…

Abby had actually gone back to her house, and barricaded herself in her bedroom. She had written and taped a sign to her door that read, "DO NOT DISTURB. SERIOUSLY. IF YOU DO I WILL KILL YOU SLOWLY AND EAT YOU", which signaled how depressed she was.

Her mother had just come home from the grocery store and found the note. Abby's mother knew that her daughter was in the room, because the sign wasn't on her door earlier that morning. Ms. Maitland knocked on the door. "Abby? Abby, honey, you in here?"

Abby couldn't hear her mother because she was face-down on her bed, sobbing. Her mother opened the door and walked over to the other side of the bed. She sat down and tried to relax her crying daughter, patting her on the back.

"What's wrong, dear?", her mother asked with concern.

"I... Art... Caleb...", Abby stuttered, before resuming her storm of tears.

"C'mon, Abby. Tell me what happened. What's wrong?"

"That casserole last night! It screwed up my insides, and I accidentally farted during art class! An' that jerk Caleb got everyone laughing at me!"

"Well I'm sorry, honey. Very sorry. But how does this make you a lesser person?"

Abby wiped a tear off of her cheek. "What?"

"Well everybody has passed gas before. Everyone. You did multiple times when you were a baby, and Jack... Oh my goodness! Could he... Point is, that everybody, you, me, your brother, that mean kid, your friends, teachers, even me, everybody has cut the cheese at least once in their life. And if they haven't, they aren't human."

Abby smiled, and hugged her mom tightly.

…

"Well, well, well, well, well, well!", Caleb remarked the next day as Abby came into class. "If it isn't Fart Girl! Tell me, is your butt gonna sing a song for us?"

"No, but I'll whip your's if you don't shut up!", Abby boldly retorted. "Guys, EVERYONE has farted before, I mean EVERYONE! I AM FARTICUS!", she yelled.

Connor stood up as well, raising his fist. "I am Farticus!", he added. Stephen followed. "I am FARTICUS!"

"I am FARTICUS!", Becker cried.

"Hey, Hey, Hey! I'm Farticus!", Fat Eric bellowed.

"I am Iron Ma- I mean Farticus!", T.J shouted.

"Huh. Well you weirdos can be fart-people, but I'M normal!", Caleb remarked. At that moment, he himself farted. "Okay, maybe I'm Farticus", he silently added.

All the kids were cheering and raising their fists in the air when Mr. Leek came into the room.

"What the _hell _was going on while I was gone?", he asked.


	24. The Bet

On a Friday afternoon the Primeval kids were hanging out at Nick's home, doing various things, but one of the most frequent was Stephen raging every time he was killed in the _Aliens: Space Marines _game, which he was playing with Connor and Abby.

"HRRRGGGHHH! OH MY GOD!", Stephen yelled after being burnt to a crisp by Connor's flamethrower.

"Stephen, bud, you really should like, control your anger", Helen remarked. Helen had been spectating the game while stuffing her face with chocolate.

"Yeah, and you should stop eating all the time."

"Hey you shut up!", shouted Helen, springing to her feet.

"Guys! GUYS!", Nick announced, trying to prevent another argument. Suddenly he got an idea.

"Hey, why don't we test these theories?", Nick suggested.

"What do you mean?", asked Stephen.

"Well you claim Helen eats all the time, and Helen, you say Stephen always gets all steamed up over stuff, right? Well why don't we all make a bet? And the rest of you can put in a dare if you want."

"How would it work?", said Jenny.

"Well basically we set a time limit, maybe like three days, and whoever can avoid their habit or face their fear wins."

"Wins what?"

"I don't know. Maybe some money, candy, something like that?"

"Alright, I'm in."

"Sure Jenny", Nick smiled. "What's your dare?"

Jenny thought for a moment. "I got it: Maybe eating a chocolate-covered grasshopper, a frog's leg and a salted snail. Those foods are yucky. I don't know how anyone would wanna eat those."

Nick clapped his hands. "Nice one, Jenny! Anyone else?"

"I'll dye my hair pink", Connor added.

Nick shrugged. "Guess that could work. Stephen, you're going to try not to get all angry and ticked-off, and Helen, you'll stop eating for-"

"_What?_", Helen cried in disbelief. "If I don't eat, I'll die! Starve to death! Game over!"

"Helen, Helen, I don't mean forever, just for, let's say; two out of three days?"

"Hmm, yeah, okay", Helen nodded.

"Alright, so we've got our dares. Now what should the prize be?"

"How about 5 bucks?", said Becker.

"Okay. And basically, this is sort of a process of elimination. The last person who hasn't failed or chickened out wins."

"Deal!"

"Deal."

…

The next day, Nick and Jenny went down to a restaurant together, but not just for lunch. Nick was going to be Jenny's witness as she ate three of the most disgusting foods a kid could eat. Nick ordered for Jenny, ordering a salted snail, a frog's leg and a chocolate-covered grasshopper, and while they were waiting for Jenny's "meal", Jenny felt and looked like she was about to get executed. The "meal" arrived a few minutes later, and Jenny's pupils widened in fear.

"Okay, Jenny, choose which one you want first", said Nick.

Jenny slowly picked up her fork and moved it at an even slower rate towards the frog's leg. The fork penetrated the frog's leg, and Jenny turned as green as the frog itself. She slowly brought the leg to her mouth, and closing her eyes, she inserted it into her mouth and swallowed. The agonizing part for Jenny was that for whatever reason, the frog's leg was s...l...o...w...l...y sliding down her throat, not because she was choking, but she couldn't tell. All she could tell is that she was definitely going to vomit by the end of the day.

A few seconds later, the frog's leg plopped into her stomach, and Jenny instantly felt as if she was going to puke. Nick noticed Jenny regain her green colors before springing up and bolting for the girls' restroom. Nick now felt like an awful boyfriend and friend in general, not just because he made her eat something nasty, but because she was the first kid to strike out on the bet, leaving just Stephen, Helen and Connor.

…

*URRGLLLGGG...*

Helen had been trying to concentrate on swinging at the park with Sarah, but her stomach had been constantly growling for the past hour-and-a-half.

"Gorman, I am _so _hungry!", she exclaimed.

"Well remember if you eat anything today or tomorrow, you lose the bet", Sarah reminded.

"Yeah, I know", Helen sighed.

…

The next day, Connor, Becker, Danny and Stephen were at Connor's flat, playing _Minecraft_ together on a server. With the exception of Stephen, who was building large "pixel-art" creations, such as a dragon, an assault rifle, and a hotdog with mustard, the other boys were building a massive space ship with sliding doors, airlocks, armories, crew's quarters and things of that nature.

"WHA-HOO!", Stephen suddenly cheered.

"What, Stephen?", Danny asked.

"I just finished this massive portrait of myself!", he cried. The other boys went over to where Stephen's character was and looked in awe at the massive multicolored masterpiece that took Stephen three or four hours to build.

"Hey guys, I'll be right back. Gotta pee", said Stephen. Stephen rushed off to the bathroom, and Danny smirked.

"What are you doing", Connor asked with concern and suspicion.

Danny walked into the space ship and retrieved one "Flint & Steel", which was a lighter. That made fire. To things such as wool-built pixel-art.

Becker started giggling, and burst into hysterics when Danny lit one of the blocks of wool on Stephen's portrait on fire. The fire started spreading, slowly at first but then it sped up, setting the whole picture in flames.

At that moment Nick walked in. "Hey Nick", said Connor, "Where's Jenny?"

Nick sighed. "Jenny was the first one to drop, and now I feel really bad about it. She threw up in the bathroom, and her dad had to come and pick her up and take her home. What's going on over here?"

"Danny just lit Stephen's thing on fire."

"What?", Nick exclaimed, "Danny, why'd you-"

At that moment Stephen came back, and the second he saw his smoldering creation, he freaked out and started yelling and swearing.

"Well Steve, looks like you just lost the bet", Danny snidely remarked.

Stephen, who was extremely ticked-off, went to punch Danny but Becker stopped him. "Sorry Stephen, he's right", Nick commented. "By the way, speaking of the bet, Connor, when are you going to dye your hair pink, because you need to dye it by tomorrow."

"Oh, my mom's picking the dye up when she goes to town", Connor replied.

"Okay."

…

The next morning, the kids went to a fast-food joint for lunch. Stephen was glaring at Danny the whole time, and Connor, true to his word, had dyed his hair pink. Abby and Sarah were biting their lips, trying desperately not to fall to pieces laughing. Helen was very stressed, knawing on her fork out of extreme hunger.

The waitress came back with the kids' orders, and Helen started sweating.

"Okay, so you ordered the Dr. Fizz...", she said, handing Stephen his drink, "You ordered the small milkshake and a small hamburger, plain except for ketchup, extra ketchup", she continued, handing Connor his order.

"THAT'S IT!", Helen exclaimed. "I can't take it anymore! I gotta eat SOMETHING, or I think I am going to slip into a coma and die! I'd like to order a large cheeseburger and a large rootbeer!"

Everybody was speechless, except for the waitress, who finally murmured, "O...kay, comin' right up."

…

"Oh man", Helen remarked about ten minutes later, "I am stuffed!"

"Stuffed like a fat turkey", Danny rudely replied.

Helen flicked (or 'thumped') Danny in the forehead. "Hey, I might be kinda fat, but I am fat and happy", she grinned.

"You realize though that you just lost a chance to win 5 dollars, right?", Becker asked.

Helen frowned. "Aw biscuits. Well, now, I'm just fat. And sad."

"Just like you've always been", Danny remarked.

"Danny, I swear to God..."

"Well guys", Nick announced, "Connor has won the bet, so Helen, Jenny and Stephen, give Connor a dollar, and I'll give him the other two-"

"I-I won? I won? I WON! WAHOO! I WON BABY!", Connor shrieked.

"Well you realize that you'll have to wait at least a couple of weeks for the dye to wear off. And we have school tomorrow."

"Yeah, you're right", Connor sighed.

"Guys! Almost time for _Space Marines_!", Stephen exclaimed.

"You go, I'll catch up once I finish my meal", Connor replied. The rest of the kids ran out the door, and Connor grinned. Throwing away his trash, he reached up and pulled off the pink wig, revealing his still-black hair.

"Idiots", he scoffed, before putting the wig back on and walking out the door.


	25. Jealous

**Hey, I'm still writing this, but I have a few things to say. First, the reason I removed "Guilt Part 1" is because I'm not ready to cross that bridge yet nor do I think I can finish it. Second, I know a lot of you are SarahxBecker fans, and I respect that, but I also really like Jess. She's a great character, very pretty, amusing at times, and so on, and that's why I'll try to focus some chapters on her, but I feel like I cannot do Jess without Becker, and especially with the character ages and the setting, so yeah. And as usual, if you have any ideas, please let me know, because I have 10 unfinished/scrapped chapters already =(. **

Spring had sprung, and Spring Break had finally arrived, so schools were out for a week and the Primeval kids were doing various things, such as a water gun fight, obviously watching more than enough _Aliens: Space Marines_, and today they were hired by a neighbor of Stephen's, Mr. LeMarre, to trim the bushes and hedges on his lawn. The kids ordinarily wouldn't have gladly accepted working on a break, but there was a reasonable payment involved, so the kids were clipping. Becker invited Jess to come hang out with the group, as she, Becker, Abby and Connor were going to go see _Eye of the Creeper _after they finished the job, which was almost done.

"So Jess, that's a cute dress you're wearing", Abby kindly remarked.

"T-Thanks", Jess smiled. "Daddy bought it for me."

"Oh no!", Connor exclaimed. "What?", asked Becker.

"I was clippin' these leaves an' I think I just cut a lizard in half!", Connor shouted. Jess whimpered in disgust, and Abby shot a sharp glare at Connor. "Heh, heh, just kidding…", Connor babbled, in fear of getting into a fight with Abby, which he would definitely lose.

Becker then turned back towards Jess, and then spotted a wasp which was flying straight towards her, probably because Stephen had been spending the morning spamming rocks at another wasp nest, and the wasp believed it was Jess, since she was a little closer to the hive. Jess turned around and screamed at the sight of the wasp just hovering right in her face, especially because she had serious allergic reactions to bug-bites and stings, but Becker quickly cupped his fist around the wasp and pulled it away from Jess. While Becker carried the insect to a sidewalk where it could be smashed, the wasp stung his palm. Becker shouted in pain, releasing the wasp, but Abby managed to capture it in an empty plastic bag that was in her pocket.

"Ow, ow, owww!", Becker cried, clenching his hand in pain. Connor rushed into the house to tell Mr. LeMarre, and as Becker sat down on the sidewalk, Jess came over and sat next to him.

"I love you", she giggled, before hugging Becker tightly. Becker smiled as she hugged him, but it was also a "neutral" look; he was unsure of why she suddenly was all happy. Yes, there was nothing wrong with that, and true, he had just saved her from a serious allergic reaction. But it seemed as if she liked him a bit deeper than that.

"Do you need some bena… ben… dryl… do you need some of this?", she asked, after unsuccessfully trying to pronounce Benadryl, before reaching into her purse and pulling out a small medical kit with bandaids, hand sanitizer and medication. "Uh, sure", Becker replied. Jess pulled out a cotton swab, put some Benadryl on it, and applied it to Becker's sting. At first Becker was yelling because of the initial sting of the Benadryl on his injury, but felt relaxed and painless a few moments later. "Thanks Jess", Becker grinned.

Jess smiled, blushed, and then kissed Becker on the cheek. "Uh, thank you?", said Becker. "We're still going to that movie, right?"

"Definitely. Hey cutie-pie, I'm gonna go inside and get some lemonade, I'll be right back!", Jess giggled, before running into the house and getting a drink. Becker remained stationary on the sidewalk until he noticed Sarah, who had marched up to him and had her hands on her hips; from the look in her eyes, it was clearly obvious that she was not happy.

"What's wrong, Sarah?", asked Becker.

"Are you divorcing on me?", she replied, although she was not completely familiar with what a divorce actually is, except for the fact that it dealt with relationships.

"What are you_ talking_ about?"

"Jess? Hugs? Kisses? I thought we were boyfriend an' girlfriend?", Sarah angrily explained.

"We were?"

"AAARGGH!", Sarah growled in frustration through clenched teeth, before storming off. Becker seemed confused, not hurt, but he just shrugged and walked into the house to get a snack.

…

Sarah had gone home, and was sitting in her room, reading _Blane Darby and the Stone of Cold Fire _while listening to music in an attempt to calm down. Sarah's mother knocked on the door. "Sarah? Sarah, sweetheart, can I talk to you?", she asked.

Sarah sighed. "Yes, come in." Mrs. Page entered the room and sat down next to Sarah. "What's the matter hon?"

"I-… Becker… Stupid Jess… Becker was my boyfriend and he divorced me", Sarah moaned. "Well the correct word is 'broke up'", Sarah's mother corrected. "But if he did, than maybe you could try to find a new boyfriend?"

"Well that's the problem. Nick, Danny, Connor and Stephen are already taken, and all the other kids at school think I'm a nerd! They think I'm weird, lame, ugly, stupid, a scaredy-cat…"

"You are not any of those! You're a beautiful young woman, very smart, nice, unique, interesting… I mean, yes, you can get sort of scared or worked-up sometimes, but I don't judge you because of that. I used to be picked on too when I was your age."

"Why?", asked Sarah.

"Because I had short-term memory loss. I couldn't remember stuff too well, so I needed help. I was bullied a lot because of that."

Sarah smiled. "Thanks for talking to me, Mom."

…

"That was so much fun!", Jess gleefully exclaimed after watching _Eye of the Creeper_ with Becker, Abby and Connor and then going to the youth recreation center and out for pizza afterwards. "Thank you so much! I'm so tired, and so full. I must've gained like a million pounds! But that was really, really fun!", she smiled. "Well I'm glad you had a good time", Becker smiled. Jess rushed over to Becker and hugged him tightly. "I love you", she sighed happily. "I really-"

Jess was cut off when Becker kissed her on the cheek. Jess's eyes widened and a large, elated smile grew on her face. Jess shrieked in excitement and happiness, and Becker, Abby and Connor covered their ears to avoid going deaf. "Sorry", Jess blushed. "Well, I've gotta get home. See you tomorrow!"

Becker had mixed feelings. He felt good about making Jess happy; for she was a kind-hearted, pretty girl, but then he felt bad when Sarah stormed away earlier during the job. He didn't really know what to do from that point, but as it was getting dark, he had to get home. At least he'd be able to think about it over the rest of the break.


End file.
